VOYAGEs of the Shep
by Carol Wolf
Summary: In which our heroes, by a really strange coincidence, are transported 75 million light years across space during a routine shuttle trip, and end up trapped in a space-time TECH TECH TECH with the Fed ship Vo YAGE r
1. Chapter 1

11

SHEP/Wolf

CHAPTER ONE

Bound for Ports Unknown

or

Who Are Those Feds, Anyway?

Rider Mahone took his place in line to board the shuttle to Hogsbreath. The departure lounge was crowded with all kinds of beings, but Rider was inured by now to the occasional repulsive sights and sharp smells of thoroughly alien lifeforms. He flexed his fingers around the Tru-Lether handle of his grip and tasted the cool recycled air of the shuttle terminal. How many ships had he boarded like this, carrying only the simplest necessities; his emergency oxygen helmet, a Kleen-ware pack with a spare set of clothes; ration tabs; a first-aid kit with extra dehydro pills, a frost coat, and the gloves Keila had given him when he moved in with her.

Poor Keila. She had promised to ship his other gear to meet him at the starship now orbiting Hogsbreath. He smiled to himself, a little sorry, as he recalled how that one tear had fallen from her eye, and she had blinked the rest away, adorably, when he told her he was leaving, that he had signed on as a Master of Arms on the Starship Meredith Vee bounds for ports unknown.

He didn't care if that stuff ever reached him. Starting over again felt good. It felt clean and right. How many times had he done this, shuffled up another ramp to start a new life?

What Rider Mahone didn't know, was that something really terrible, something shocking, and, incidentally, quite fatal, was about to happen to him. The shuttle he was in line to board, the Shepherd of the Stars, was about to suffer a terrible fate, and most of the beings boarding the shuttle with him would experience a sudden and horrific end, or else the wildly improbable adventures that awaited the survivors, most of whom would eventually die as well.

They weren't shuffling on board very fast. The Shepherd of the Stars Shuttle Lines advertised a complete range of services, which was this year's way of saying that it took alien business. It was a Darthian de-greeting ritual up ahead that was holding up the whole boarding process. That, and some guy in an old-fashioned velour Fed uniform arguing with the boarding steward at the gate.

Rider started to burn. He didn't mind the seven Darthian family units bobbing and spinning around the family in line for departure; Darthian rituals were obligatory to their species. It was the Feds that always burned him up.

Who did they think they were? He'd heard discussions on this in every rec dive and alc joint he'd ever set foot in. If you asked one of them, they said they were officers (always officers!) of the naval arm of a federation of planets, but when you asked them what planets, they got really vague. They were also ready to tell you at any time they were the elite of the known universe, and they had the publicity department vids to prove it. Rider had taken a few Feds out back and whipped em in his time, so he had his doubts, but this had never gotten on vid.

Rider had even more reason than he knew to be furious with the Feds. His fate, which was soon going to catch up with him, was going to be caused by his intersection with a Fed probability field. That is to say, having gotten near a Fed, he was about to be a background character in one of the Fed adventure series. If he had known that, he would have stepped out of line and broken that Fed's neck out of hand. But he did not know, and so events took their prescribed course.

Rider could have shipped with the Feds, if he'd wanted, but what spaceman in his right mind would ship with an outfit that got itself in royal trouble regularly on a weekly basis, and lately even more often than that? Or on a ship where all the senior officers stood one watch, the same watch? Where each ship had plenipotentiary powers to start wars, sign treaties, create colonies, move colonies, and generally mess with normal peoples' lives?

Rider had always been glad to live in a time when everybody pretty well realized that governments' only duty pretty much was to maintain a standard of fair living conditions, keep the greedy and powerful off the backs of ordinary decent folk, and have no opinion of what any body's family values ought to be. There hadn't been any great heaving wars or cataclysms to achieve all this; governments had pretty well found their niche out of inertia. But those Feds tromping around in uniform everywhere, with their super-powered weapons systems, playing war and peace everywhere they went, were a menace to everyone. What made him burn was when normal people took them at their own self-assessment and treated them like the Flightless Wonder of the Galaxy's gift to the universe.

There it was! The Fed in velour had somehow convinced the gate director that whatever the Fed wanted was more important than getting her passengers boarded. Rider considered tripping the both of them as they passed him on their way out of the lounge. The gate was closed; the lines had stopped. Oh well. The Darthian de-greeting ritual was going to keep them stalled for awhile anyway. They weren't at the climax yet.

With his death only a few time segments away, Rider Mahone wondered whether the Fed was saving the planet, the universe, or just having a key interpersonal development episode. Whatever it was, the vid camera wasn't in here. Rider decided if they did bring a vid camera in here he was going to have to kill someone. If the Feds started recording anything in your immediate vicinity, it was best to get out fast, if you possibly could. You might only be background for one of their conversations, but usually, if you were in one of their crowd scenes, you were probably in deadly danger of your life. Rider had heard a rumor that the Feds were not only involved in these episodes of heightened danger by chance, but that somehow they created them. He had a personal policy of staying far away from any Fed activity -- though this was hard, because somehow they had developed the technology to appear just about anywhere. Rider had decided, if he ever did become suddenly involved in a Fed situation, with vid camera and all, he was going to kill the camera man. He figured, that would put a stop to everything long enough for him to get out.

But Rider did not know that the event that was about to close him in its fatal grasp was simply a background plot line that would intersect with the main plot in due course, after destroying the lives of a whole lot of unimportant people. Like him.

The Darthians were whirling and hooting now, their eye-pods and arm portions slapping themselves. It wouldn't be long. It was easy for Rider to identify the separate family units. There was always a tall female, a more rounded male, two wrinkled, bent, older versions of the same, and two smaller, more energetic copies; the grandparents and the kids. They looked like the perfect family. They stuck together, too. Rider had once shipped on a passenger lines that toured Darthian space. The family units berthed together in one cabin; they moved around the ship as though connected by string.

Rider laughed to himself, remembering. There had been a journalist on one of his crossings who had come to write up and extol Darthian family values. He had followed one family unit for half the trip and was even permitted to witness the ceremony where the Darthians swapped their son (or daughter) with another family. Four months later when the new couple gave birth to the usual twin offspring the journalist was invited to the celebration feast, but when, at the climax of the feast, the grandparents were ceremonially butchered and their parts cut up to be cooked and eaten on the spot, he departed for his cabin. He never talked about the Darthians anymore.

The Darthians were howling now in short bursts that grew louder and louder. Rider knew they would soon disperse. He could afford to be patient; it was only two hops to Hogsbreath from here, with a short jump to sol-speed on the second leg. He didn't mind the Darthians. Their flopping parts might look as if they were going to fall off at any moment, but you got used to that. The Arachnids, though, Rider thought were repulsive.

There was an Arachnid pair up ahead, stepping daintily, their stick-like legs hardly visible in the subdued all-beings-safe lighting. They looked delicate, regal, like preying mantises out for a stroll. Their antennae were vibrating, so Rider knew they were talking, but humanoids couldn't hear whatever it was they were saying. Rider found this annoying. He hoped the female wasn't going to come into heat. When female Arachnids prepared to mate they emitted a stench so strong that no one in range -- and that range was considerable -- could think of anything but sex as long as it went on.

Rider had been on a ship where they'd arrested a female Arachnid and put her in isolation when she came into heat. They'd had to; they had a shipload of male Grondians on board, and male Grondians, when they started thinking about sex -- well, anyway, it was a mess. Rider had taken his turn guarding the Arachnid, and that was pretty awful. The stench stuck to your clothes and hair, and got into your dreams for days afterwards.

What would Keila think of the Arachnids? Keila lived in a section of town far away from the shuttle port, that was designated humanoids-only. If she saw a non-human at least it had the number of arms, legs and heads that she was used to. He thought of telling her about the Arachnids in a letter; he had promised her he would write, but he knew he wasn't going to.

He'd always thought the humanoids who segregated themselves like that were pretty stupid. Why deny what's out there? Why not get more familiar with it, instead of always just looking in a mirror, so to speak. The Feds, almost without exception, crewed their ships with humanoids only. You had to have the right number of heads and limbs to get into the exclusive officer's school from which they staffed all their ships, and if you wanted to rise to the top it was best to get a sex change if you weren't male; unless you wanted to spend your career as a helper or assistant to the top officers.

A kind of peace settled on the crowded lounge as the Darthians abruptly fell silent and dispersed. Well, there was still all the snuffling, honking, clicking, creaking, odd vibrations, color flashes and smells that all passed for communication among the various beings waiting for the shuttle to depart. Where was that damned gate officer?

The line swayed uneasily as thirty or forty different species adjusted to frustration in their own ways.

The Feds weren't always this lucky, Rider reminded himself. There was that story about a Fed ship -- about the size and make of a Shepherd of the Stars Shuttle, in fact; the the very shuttle he was about to board -- that had been chasing an "outlaw" craft (whatever that meant; the Feds made their own laws) that had supposedly kidnapped one of their officers. (Highly unlikely; no one messed with the Feds. No one knew how, but they had this incredible knack for bringing in more ships, reinforcements, whatever was needed -- even a breakthrough in technology -- just in the nick of time, whenever they needed it. Rider often heard people wonder what gods the Feds prayed to, that they should be so lucky all the time). Anyway, this Fed ship had supposedly been transferred intact, just as with the enemy ship it was chasing had been, shortly before, to some remote region of the galaxy, seventy-five million light years away. Well, it could happen. It wasn't very likely, but it could happen. It especially wasn't very likely to happen twice in a row, as the Feds claimed, but what the hey. Strange things did happen at sol-speed. The Feds called it something else, but who cared about them? No one quite understood sol-speed; they were just glad it existed, and if a ship or two were lost now and then, it was a chance everyone took for the privilege of traveling in a manner they didn't understand. Rider knew that about sol-speed. He was willing to risk it.

The gate director was back! She was still accompanied by the Fed who had drawn her away, and another young man, a standard Fed-type smooth-white-male humanoid. Rider watched with disgust as the Fed got this guy on board first. Oh well, who cared; the line began to move forward; the Fed departed the lounge without coming into range for the kick Rider really wanted to give him. Rider shifted his grip to his other hand and dug his board-card out of his pouch.

What was the name of the Fed ship they'd lost -- literally misplaced, in fact. Traveler. Something like that. The story had come back over the last year that they'd made an appalling mess of things within two hours of being transmitted out to the regions of unknown space: started an interplanetary war, and joined forces with the enemy ship -- the Feds now had standing charges against them for fraternizing with an enemy, negligence and criminal stupidity, which, even among the Feds, in these enlightened times, was a felony offense.

No wonder, Rider'd heard, the Traveler wasn't trying very hard to get home. No, they were still out there somewhere, petting giant unknown entities, offering such reverence to unknown alien races that they sometimes forgot to breathe, and having deep interpersonal relationship episodes with one another.

There was a time when he'd envied the Feds, Rider thought as he found a seat on the aisle, stowed his grip and strapped himself in. Back in the days when they careened around the galaxy and word came back of their adventures he'd even thought briefly of joining up, though he didn't like their uniforms; they didn't seem to fit anyone. But lately they'd been taken over by a bunch of incredibly self-righteous prigs who spent so much time revering other life forms that they'd lost all common sense. No, it was the Meredith Vee for him. She was known as a lucky ship, a private merchant-cum-explorer, which meant anything goes as long as you brought back a profit, whether from the cargo, or -- even better -- unclaimed real estate. Which is why she was heading for ports unknown. It was the kind of berth Rider had always wanted, out there where you saw things no one had yet imagined. Safer than the Feds; the Meredith Vee was a tight ship, and he could go off-watch and sleep knowing that the second officer was on duty if the first wasn't, and a fully trained navigator, not some rating, was at the helm.

He felt the shuttle trembling slightly under his feet. The seats were filling fast. The bridge crew boarded from their own quarters off the lobby. The downstairs shuttle lounge was for first class only, and had its own access way to the first class cabin in the deck below the main cabin. First class was usually reserved for those who needed special environments. It must be fully booked today, Rider saw; there were four or five other beings in enviro-suits scattered around the main cabin. It was filling up all right; he smelled the thick wet miasma of the Frog People. Three of them squeezed passed and sat in the row alongside him. Rider didn't mind. He'd smelled worse.

He'd gone to space on his first ship at sixteen; he'd been a spaceman all his life. He'd shipped on freighters, on passenger ships, and even crewed inter-system shuttles like this one; the Shepherd of the Stars. The Meredith Vee was his dream ship. This was going to be the best berth he'd ever had. The Captain was a Platomorph, he'd heard, which probably meant a forty-hour ship's day, two watches a day; a leisurely schedule for exploring. There were upwards of two hundred crewmen, which was a good-sized community for a long haul. Not like this would be: Rider looked around at the tight quarters, the fully-booked main cabin; there were only three seats left, right in the back.

What was the hold-up now? The com clicked twice and the smooth-voiced Journey Steward apologized for the delay. Two soft-footed deck crew members, Nolians by their small size and transparent epidermises, served complimentary beverages and Fringian mushrooms to mollify the passengers during the delay. Rider relaxed along with everyone else; Fringian mushrooms were pretty much a universal delicacy. He ate his share with relish; they were even more delicious than he remembered. You didn't often get Fringian mushrooms; not more than two or three times in a lifetime, they said. This was quite a treat. The wine was a little acrid, but this station was a long ways from any real fruit or flowers, so Rider thought he couldn't complain.

Here was the problem! A Stellar Beauty Queen stepped onto the shuttle, ducking under the hatchway as she entered. Her bodyguard, even taller than she, stepped in front of her, and eyed the passengers as he led the way to the three empty seats with watchful ease. Behind the Stellar Beauty Queen stomped her professional manager and chaperon. Rider's pulses jumped in spite of himself. He'd seen pictures, of course. Everyone had; that was the whole point. But he'd never seen a Stellar Beauty Queen in the flesh before. He stared as she passed him. Could her legs really be that long? The garment she wore looked like it was adhering to her by static cling alone. And she really did have rocket-tipped breasts. Her sloe eyes captured his for a moment as she passed him, and he was stabbed. He watched the humanoid pubescent male across the aisle turn a deep beet red. The Frogs beside him were honking quietly and enthusiastically.

Rider had heard that these females were volunteered as pre-pubescents and manufactured by leading health and beauty companies, plastic surgeons and pharmaceuticals into the Beauty Queens of the Galaxy. Their careers as wealthy models and actresses were assured; they worked for their companies until they were twenty-nine and then they retired, some said to their own planets. They were systematically designed to make all pulses race. Rider sat back with pleasure and waited for his to ease up.

They were starting at last.

On to new worlds; a new ship, a new life. Farewell to Keila, and all the women in port that he had ever loved. Rider spent the short hop to the third planet reviewing with sad pleasure the good-bye scenes he'd been through in the past. He wasn't cruel; he never made them wait. It was kinder -- and less awkward in the long run -- just to break things off.

There was short pause at the second planet where half a dozen passengers departed and two more enviro-suits got on, followed by a couple of half-breeds of some kind, and one of the Pointy-Eared People, who walked down the aisle in the ponderous, dignified way of his kind, and found a seat, inevitably, next to the smooth-white-male humanoid the Fed had shepherded on board. Rider saw the smooth humanoid speak, the Pointy-Eared Person reply, and snorted to himself as the two immediately began quietly to argue.

The shuttle hummed, then roared, and they were told by the soft-voiced Journey Steward to prepare to jump. Rider thought of the Meredith Vee, so soon to be his home, and how anything could happen out there. He felt clean; he felt new; this was the beginning of it all.

Then it happened. They jumped.

It was the last thing he ever knew.


	2. Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO  
In Which a Terrible Disaster Has Occurred

The Shepherd Shuttle Service announced the loss of their ship Shepherd of the Stars after a badly-managed jump to sol-speed had sent them off the charts. After a suitable interval, when no word had been received of the Shepherd's whereabouts, they advanced the ship's status to Missing, Presumed Lost, paid out the usual fees to the galaxy press to bury the story as soon as possible, and began compensating the next-of-kin at the rate agreed to in the Life Value Treaty of two hundred years before. The presence on board of five first-class passengers and a conglomerate-owned Stellar Beauty Queen cost the company a fortune, but it was not they who went bankrupt, but their insurance company, so no one felt the loss.

Meanwhile, the Shepherd of the Stars, which had not actually mismanaged their jump but had, by a really strange coincidence, met with an alien energy transmitter beam during their speed-of-light jump and had consequently, by a means beyond the comprehension of present-day physicists (or physics, for that matter) been transferred instantly to a remote region of the galaxy about 75 million light years from the shuttle's home port of Hogarth, Arcturus-3. This is the kind of thing that happens in the background of Fed characters, and Fed ships, so obviously, one of them was, however unknowing, involved.

This was not the usual ship's disaster where the camera rocks and the crew staggers or even falls on the floor. All life forms on board who weren't capable of withstanding 24+ gs for an unmeasurable time period (they were, after all, at sol) exploded, and boy, was that a mess. All life forms and a good deal of other matter at the front of the ship where the alien beam passed through, disintegrated. There was a hull breach, but it was minor; one of the beings in an enviro-suit was sucked into the hole and stayed there, blocking it, till the hole was patched. She died later of what looked like gangrene after the frostbite, but she was a Geotheed who believed that one's effect on others in life is cumulative through one's various reincarnations, and she was very glad to have saved everyone's life. She told them so a little too often while she lay dying, and everyone was glad when she finally shut up.


	3. Chapter 3

18

SHEP/Wolf

CHAPTER THREE

Log Entry of the Navigator of the Shepherd

of the Stars Prior to Committing Suicide

Navigator Ombadway reporting. The Captain is dead. First Officer Cahheoze and Officer Zei-cui-fet-ro are -- I think they're dead. I don't know what happened. We jumped to sol and someone yelled "What's that​?" and I -- I must have blacked out. I was in the head at the back of the bridge. I heard them yelling through the door. When I came out -- they're mostly melted. I think it's all of them.

I'm not sure where we are. A lot of the instrument consoles are fried. Life support is still working. I think. The air smells a bit funny but I can't tell -- it may just be burned meat.

I don't know where we are. That's the problem with being in uncharted space -- the lack of charts. The computer thinks it's identified the twin stars Rom and Rem -- except I bumped it just now, and then it thought it was looking at the Pleiades. But it's reading Rom and Rem again now, about 75 light years from here. I think. I've checked the passenger list. There's about half a dozen beings on board who can expect to live long enough to get back.

I'm not one of them. Anyway, I've got radiation burns all down my right side. I've used most of the morphine we had in the first aid kit on the bridge. The door to the cabin is locked. Someone tried to come in here right after the -- ah, accident. I had to burn him. So I locked the door. I know they want to kill me. They think it's my fault. I can hear them over the com.

I've set a course for Rom and Rem. I think it's Rom and Rem. The food reproducing units are still operative. We're on our way home. I am sealing the navigational controls so no unauthorized person can change the settings. Damn.

The nav computer blipped. Said Rom and Rem is a Vimian particle storm. I tapped it a couple of times, then I slapped it pretty good. It's recognizing Rom and Rem again. I wonder why it can't find Herculum. Should be right nearby. Should be right...

Must have passed out. What was I doing...?

I can hear screaming out in the main cabin. I'd better talk to them.

"Uh. People. People. This is Navigation Officer Ombadway speaking to you from the bridge. Speaking for the Shepherd Shuttle Service, I would like to apologize for the...slight... turbulence...which has caused a few problems up here on the bridge. And I'm afraid there will be an unavoidable delay in our reaching our destination of Hogarth Station.

"People -- people -- you can't come in here. The door is locked. Shuttle flight rules state no authorized beings on the bridge while the craft is in transit. We are on our way -- I promise you. Just -- take your seats. Complimentary beverages will be served with your food. Compensation for delay of arrival may be negotiated with Shepherd Shuttle Services when we reach our destination."

This is the last of the morphine. I can feel the burns, they're all down the left side of my body. It's like I'm being consumed by fire.

The stores on board should be adequate for the remaining passengers. As long as life support doesn't conk out.

I can see the souls of the Captain and Rosa and Camillion swirling -- looking for the way home. It's best I go with them. The morphine's about gone. Before the burning starts again, I'll fill up my last hypo with air, and inject it into my heart.

I can see Rom and Rem shining steadily on the view screen. There! There's Herculum. It was there all the time. I must have missed it.

What time is it? Ha. That's a good one. Must have dozed off. Oh, Lady. It hurts. Time to go...

"Uh. Gentle Beings, there is no cause for alarm. We are on course for our scheduled destination of Hogarth station, via the Rom and Rem system. Relax and leave the flying to us, and thank you for choosing the Shepherd of the Stars."

And here is my way home. I am injecting myself -- hey. What is this? What do you mean, you stupid appliance. You can't shut down now. I know it could kill me, that's the point you stupid -- fucking safety settings!-- please please -- no, oh no -- no -- it hurts -- please -- nooooo OOOOOOO- AAAAAHHHHHHGHGHGHGHGHH...


	4. Chapter 4

CHAPTER FOUR

In Which There Is A Great Deal of Cleaning Up

And Several Beings Go Mad

The Journey Steward, a Pridian of Megalon-4, was the first to go mad. No one noticed right off. Aside from the slightly vacant stare and the supercilious smile no one who was not a Pridian of Megalon-4 could tell there was anything wrong with her. As long as she had something to do, she would be fine. When she ran out of things to do, and started to chew her own leg off, then it would become pretty obvious to everyone that Eloise, the Journey Steward, had gone mad.

She was one of the first to recover after the ship's decks stopped hitting everyone and the high-pitched humming noise that all alien space beams traditionally made, disappeared.

That's when the Eglantine male started screaming.

"They're dead! They're dead! My children! My com-cousins! My fourth-sister! My intra-aunt's grandmother! They're all dead! All of them!"

Eglantines have multi-toned voices that can go off the scale at both ends of the register. Their voices are particularly adapted for screaming. That is why, it is said, they do so much of it when they can.

"Where are we? Who did this to us? What's going to happen now?"

The voice screamed on and on.

Eloise the Journey Steward smiled a little more vacantly, and went to get the plastic bags usually used in transit for particularly bad messes and spills.

She noticed that the Pointy-Eared-Person and a smooth male humanoid were working on the hull breach, and she was glad. She seemed to be the last remaining crew member alive, and she had done very poorly in the training class where they taught you to use those little robots to fix things outside the ship. Either the Pointy-Eared-Person or the smooth humanoid must know what they were doing because the little lights on the control panel indicated something was happening out there. The two beings were arguing quietly but furiously. She couldn't hear what they were saying over the Eglantine's screams, which seemed to have increased in volume.

The being in the enviro-suit who was thoughtfully plugging the hole in the hull with her body seemed to be crying -- probably from cold, Eloise thought. She decided not to go and offer her a complimentary beverage just now. Eloise had always received the highest marks for tact.

Eloise passed out the plastic bags to those who had managed to unstrap themselves and were standing about in a dazed way that meant they needed something to do. Then she thought of something, and went to the galley for a set of spoons. She thought they were all going to need them.

It was a long job. Everyone found it easier, Eloise noticed, to deal with other species than their own. Everyone, that is, who was up to helping in the clean-up. The male Arachnid had climbed up to the corner of the ceiling and was sewing himself into a cocoon. The female Arachnid was scraping up flesh, piling limbs and miscellaneous glop into her plastic bag with complete imperviousness. For the most part, butt-headed humanoids chose to sort out smooth-headed humanoids; the Worms -- snake-bodied hermaphrodites with arms coming out of their skulls -- sorted out the tree people, who were mostly broken, not dead, it was later discovered.

No one wanted to touch the Frogs. All three Frogs had exploded, and as they seemed to have carried with them the round black worms that would render them back to the swamp matter of their home-world of Settmore, every splat of their scattered flesh was already writhing. Eloise, setting a good example, spooned them up gamely, and only a Pridian would have noticed that her frozen smile had begun to spasm slightly. Later it was found that these worms were highly adaptable; they got into everything.

Eloise paused over the dead male humanoid still strapped in next to the Frogs. There wasn't a mark on him. His head and face were smooth. His gray eyes were open, rigidly focused on something very far away. Eloise froze, staring at him. She started to touch the lean cheek, and something inside her began to well up -- but then the female Arachnid stepped past her, unstrapped him, and folded him neatly into her plastic bag.

Eloise's smile softened a fraction, and she hurried to the forward hatch, the one that hadn't been sealed shut by the alien ray, and showed the frightened, shaken beings how to work the airlock and get rid of their bulging, horrid plastic bags.

The Eglantine was still screaming. The young Drachian male gave him a look as, in his turn, he dialed the airlock. Eloise turned away. There was much more cleaning up to do. Everyone had somehow gotten all over everything.

The Pointy-Eared-Person and the smooth young humanoid were arguing more loudly now. She could hear their voices over the Eglantine's screams, which had taken on a hoarse quality that seemed somehow to add more sound.

The Drachian was standing in the aisle looking at his hands. Eloise brightly thought that this was a good time to turn on the food reproduction unit and offer everyone some Fringian mushrooms. Even the blank-faced survivors huddled in their seats and rocking themselves responded to the offer of Fringian mushrooms. The smooth humanoid still arguing with the Pointy-Eared-Person told her his name was Church, and said it was almost worth it all, to have Fringian mushrooms again.

"I love Fringian mushrooms!" Church said with a big, friendly smile. "Hey! Don't touch that! I told you, if you touch that, it will TECH TECH TECH TECH TECH TECH that will cause the TECH TECH TECH TECH TECH..."

Eloise smiled appreciatively, realizing at once that Church was averting some scientific disaster that she had not the understanding to comprehend. The Pointy-Eared-Person argued back at him with ever-increasing reasonability.

It was at this point that the Navigator's voice came over the com. Eloise's smile stiffened as she realized along with everybody else that all the officers were not dead; that at least one was hiding out on the bridge. That gave her an idea, and she made her way through the crawling, pressing mass of survivors heading toward the door to the bridge and got herself a tactile comp pad, drew up the passenger list, and began compiling a second list of those passengers who were still alive. She decided to count the Zeben Empath who hadn't moved since the -- turbulence -- though she still registered a pulse when Eloise pointed a salt shaker at her. She counted the Arachnid male, now invisible in a corner of the ceiling inside his cocoon. The Stellar Beauty Queen was rousing at last, and Eloise put her on the list. She hesitated before she added the three males; the pubescent humanoid adolescent, and two other butt-heads, who were gathered around the Beauty Queen when they should have been helping, and then kindly added them as well.

The Pointy-Eared Person told her his name was Pock, and that he was from a famous family. Eloise nodded but stopped listening; all Pointy-Eared People said they were from famous families. The smoothie told her his complete name was Tim Eastley London Church.

Eloise pointedly took no notice as several of the passengers tackled the Eglantine, strapped him down and taped his mouth shut, and blessed, blessed peace reigned in the main cabin of the Shepherd of the Stars. Eloise started to pass our more Fringian mushrooms to those who were hungry.

That's when the Navigator, still locked on the bridge, started screaming.

Most of the glop of former beings was finally removed. More passengers felt themselves able to help scrub every inch of the cabin down with disinfectant. Everything was going nicely.

The Eglantine chewed through his gag, but they were ready for him and replaced it. The hull breach was repaired at last, and Eloise, using the salt shaker as she had once been shown by a Fed medico, diagnosed severe frostbite on the Geotheed in the envirosuit. The Geotheed said she didn't mind, and she was glad that she had been able to save everyone, even though it meant she was now in horrible pain. She told everyone this very cheerfully. Then she told them again.

Church and Pock were now arguing furiously over the twin stars that showed faintly in the view finder. Eloise's smile stiffened, and when the navigator on the bridge's screams finally faded and died, she cheerfully deleted him from her new list.

It was when she was faced with having to explain to everyone that the food reproducing unit had been sealed onto the setting of Fringian mushrooms, and that was all, absolutely all it would ever give them to eat until the whole unit could be unsoldered and replaced, that Eloise finally sat down and, having nothing further to do, began to chew her own leg off.


	5. Chapter 5

30

SHEP/Wolf

CHAPTER FIVE

In Which There Is A Great Deal

Of Discussion About **FOOD**

Fringian mushrooms were discovered by the first colonists of the Planet Fringia, actually a moon of Algal-7. The colonists were dedicated, steadfast and serious pioneers who came to carve out a new life for themselves on a distant planet and live intense lives close to the earth while they scraped a living from the soil.

The Fringian mushrooms, however, were not only already there, they were everywhere on Fringia, and they tasted phenomenally delicious. The pioneers abandoned farming and became mushroom pickers (they didn't have to grow them), mushroom exporters, and before long, mushroom multi-millionaires. Those mushrooms were really, really good.

Sometime later during the lengthy process of creating a mutual incorporation of the planet-wide business, giving equal shares to all the original pioneers, it was discovered that the mushrooms on Fringia were sentient beings. And pretty darned bright ones, too, if it might be said.

The market collapsed as the appalling scandal blew all over the galaxy. The pioneers, and consumers everywhere, had to confront the fact that they had been cutting down, chopping up, cooking, eating, canning, buying and selling the intelligent natives of the Algal-7 satellite. A vegetarian health food store owner on Earth committed suicide with her family and their two cats. There was a great deal of regurgitive soul-searching.

A black market for the mushrooms opened up almost immediately. These mushrooms were really, really good.

Communications with the Fringians were opened in due course. The pioneers were abject. Strangely, the Fringians were not all that upset. There wasn't much that could kill a Fringian mushroom. They were a contemplative race, and they regarded the pioneers' insurgencies on their population rather as they would a natural disaster. On the other hand, the Fringians were fascinated by the colonists' talents for locomotion. Fringians could move, but it involved a great deal of cloning. They were also really excited about the possibilities of space flight.

Extremely delicate negotiations were opened, and after careful probing, subtle discussions, long and discreet communications between various members of the newly-discovered race, it was resolved that the colonists would become the Fringians' undertakers. Dead Fringians would be turned over the colonists to sell, and the Fringians would in return be accorded access to spaceflight. Since the scandal had caused an astronomical rise in prices, the colonists were able to agree to these terms with enthusiasm.

Strangely, there was not much of a drop-off in the availability of quality Fringian mushrooms thereafter. The colonists did not inquire too closely as to why so many Fringians were dying all of a sudden, and on such a regular basis. Some Fringians had alluded to the convenience of disposing of their excess in young males, but as this raised more questions among the colonists than it answered, such as how the Fringian mushroom people could possibly distinguish gender among their undifferentiated cells, the colonists carefully did not inquire further. The galaxy was accorded a limited but steady supply of these unbelievably divine mushrooms, mushroom aficionados squared it with their consciences when the actual names of the "donors" appeared on the label of the little cans, and everyone involved got really, really rich.

Fringian mushrooms were so rare and so expensive that some beings were lucky to taste them once in their lives. On board the Shepherd of the Stars the whole company of survivors, by the time the clean-up had been completed, was heartily sick of them.

Eloise the Journey Steward had been given something to do. They had learned that when she was fully occupied, it was safe to unstrap her, which was necessary if they wanted to talk to her. Otherwise she seemed not to hear anything said to her, but only kept straining to get her foot in her mouth.

The Darthian youth had told her that he had lost the micro-jewel from his ido-family bracelet which would allow him to be identified by the Darthians in his clan group when he returned, so that he would not be declared an orphan, and therefore legally dead. So Eloise the Journey Steward was on her hands and knees searching for a micro-jewel in and around where the Darthian youth had been sitting during the -- turbulence.

The Darthian -- who wouldn't be able to take his father's name until he had duly reproduced and eaten his grandparents, and so had no name of his own -- had made up the story about the ido-family bracelet, so that Eloise was sure to be occupied for a long, long time.

"Eloise? Eloise? Can I ask you a question?" Most of the survivors had placed themselves within ear-shot, but Church asked the questions. She always seemed to like him.

"Of course." Eloise slowly felt along what had been the Darthian's seat. "Just one moment while I find something."

"Oh, you don't need to stop what you're doing," Church said in his nice, friendly way. "I just wanted to know what ships' stores the Shepherd is carrying."

"We don't need to carry ships' stores, now that we've been upgraded and are supplied with a fully-operative food reproducing unit."

"You mean, there's no other food on board?" hissed an enviro-suit. Everyone had just recently begun to wonder how many of the beings clothed in enviro-suits might be solely meat eaters.

"Sh. I'm taking care of this," said Church.

"It might be wise," Pock, the Pointy-Eared-Person interjected, "to phrase your interrogatory in a manner more calculated to induce a response within the parameters to coincide fully with our overall objective."

"Huh?" breathed the pubescent male hominid.

"I was just about to do that, okay?"

"Pardon me. Your hesitation had led me to believe --"

"All right, guys. Enough. Church, ask the question."

When the Stellar Beauty Queen spoke in her low, musical voice that was not without its core of strength (since this was the fashion in women these days) every male in hearing responded, and every female wondered how she did it.

"Right," said Church. "Eloise, is the ship carrying any other cargo?"

"Well," replied Eloise, slowly feeling her way along the carpeting under the Darthian's seat, "We do have a cargo bay. We use it for checked baggage on long trips. But we were just making two short hops, so today we're carrying freight..."

The rest of her answer was drowned out by the shouts of delight and the trumpets and calls as every being tried to figure out where the cargo bay was located and how to get into it.

"This premature celebration is illogical," Pock told Church, who had pulled out the ship's specifications from one of the seat pockets. "The cargo may be expressly non-edible. We may be carrying perfume from Winnymead-4 or a delivery of power tools to the Planetary Superstore on Hogarth's second moon."

"Yeah," said Church, "and it may be a load of frozen pizzas for the starving people of New India. And I can taste those pepperonis right now."

"Or it might be meat," hissed an enviro-suit in passing, causing a few more people to worry harder about what might be in those things.

The short, stubby, middle-aged female smooth humanoid whom everybody had seen by now but no one had noticed, really, was the first being the locate the cargo bays and also to figure out and dial the entry code that permitted access from the ship's interior. The cargo bay was usually kept sealed between trips.

A crowd of beings rushed to the opening of the tightly packed bay. Willing hands, protrusions, limbs, suckers and hairy insect legs pulled at the tightly packed crates until the Arachnid cracked open the sealed pallet and one was dragged free. While Church and Pock argued over the most efficacious use of a crowbar as a lever to open the crate, the dumpy female settled the matter by hauling herself with a crate onto a chair, and throwing it down on its corner to the deck and splintering it.

Thus it was discovered that the cargo bay was packed solid with that very rare, very expensive delicacy in tiny cans: the Fringian mushroom.


	6. Chapter 6

39

SHEP/Wolf

CHAPTER SIX

In Which a Number of Beings Buy It

No one had heard the Eglantine scream in quite a while, so it was impossible to determine just when he had died. It was the half-breed who discovered the body. "Oh, shit!" is what she said.

Her name was Miranon, and you could not tell she was a half-breed if you saw only her right profile or her left. Her right profile was the smooth almond skin and soft hair of a lovely smooth humanoid, with a pretty earring to stress her femininity. Her left profile had the butt-headed looming brow, scowling protrubent lips, large ragged ears and scraggly bristles of the savage warrior race of the Ngons.

When humans first met the Ngons, war was instantly declared. Their first look at the Ngons conjured all their subconscious archetypes of huge savage bears, wolves, tigers and even snakes. The Ngons' roaring guttural language, their propensity for sporting weapons as jewelry, their greeting rituals that take the form of an attack, all roused in the humans an overwhelming desire to kill every Ngon in existence, burn their nests, stamp out their planet and rip up their family photographs. When the humans calmed down, after eighty years or so of satisfactory killing, the anthro guys were able to get in there and discover that Ngon rituals were nine-tenths bluster, posturing, and bad temper, and the two species had enjoyed a generous and respectful friendship ever since.

It was not thought possible that the two species could interbreed. Not much was known of Ngon breeding rituals because if you brought the subject up with a Ngon, you were likely to find yourself with your ears tied together with your shoulder blades, and after that you couldn't understand the answers. Miranon, the half-breed, knew that interbreeding was impossible between the races; her Ngon father and smooth-humanoid mother had both been scientists, and quite curious about their differences: Miranon was the result of an experiment in grafting. Miranon often found herself rubbing the join along her body where the two halves met. The cells in that part were neither human nor Ngon, and always itched, or ached, or both, like a scar that never healed. It was most uncomfortable.

Since all Ngons were known to be impatient savage murderers when they were upset, and half-breeds were always suspected by both sides, Miranon was pretty sure that when the Eglantine's death became known, she was going to be everyone's favorite suspect. That is why she said, "Oh shit!"

Humanoids, butt-headed or smooth, always assumed a Ngon was going to fight over a problem to the death rather than discuss it, so humanoids traditionally went ahead and attacked Ngons first. Miranon had long since learned to initiate discussions on every possible problem immediately to prevent herself from being constantly ambushed without warning.

"All right!" she yelled in her ragged, half-savage voice, "Who Did This?"

The two remaining Snake people got to her first. They weren't very articulate, but she knew what they were thinking.

"Look, I didn't kill him!" she rasped.

"It would seem to be the logical conclusion," the Pointy-Eared Person pointed out. "You are known for your incendiary temperament. The Eglantine was a known offender of most beings' sensibilities --"

"I am not known for my incendiary temperament! What are you, stupid? Nobody here knows me at all!"

"Eloise!" called Church as he came up, "Could you please come and point your salt shaker at this guy and tell us what he died of?"

"That will not be necessary." The dumpy middle-aged female whom no one ever noticed spoke up quietly. She had their attention now. "Anyone who lifts the Eglantine's chin from his neck --" she demonstrated -- "can easily see --"

"Oh my God!" cried Church.

"Exactly," said the dumpy female. "Someone on board is a Vampire Blood Hound."

"Must be one of the suits!" choked Miranon. Like most of the others, she had involuntarily dropped her chin over her soft, vulnerable, pulsing, blood-filled throat.

"Illogical," said Pock. "There is insufficient evidence for such a conclusion. In fact --"

"Oh, come on, Pock, it must be the suits," Church cried. "Are you suggesting that somebody here is a Vampire Blood Hound in disguise? Or maybe you think we have a hitchhiker? Someone we don't know about?"

"I think the term is stowaway, aboard a ship," the Pointy-Eared person replied officiously.

"Oh, no," said Eloise, appearing now with her salt-shaker. "We don't allow stowaways on Shepherd Shuttle Services. Our security is excellent."

"There you go, Pock. It must be one of the suits," said Church.

"Or more," said the Stellar Beauty Queen quietly.

All soft-skinned beings felt themselves involuntarily herding together.

"Hey, Eloise," suggested Church, "Why don't you point your salt shaker at those suits and tell us what we got there."

This was an unhappy suggestion. Everybody, especially Church, was really sorry about it afterwards. Because of course, all five of the beings in enviro-suits stepped back at the suggestion that the enviro-suit that was keeping them alive moment by moment in what was otherwise, for them, a lethal environment, be probed by some wild Fed medico technology. This was in turn misinterpreted by the remaining soft-skinned beings with their chins clamped to their chests who were roiling, every one of them, with the amorphous fear of the terrifying death bestowed by the suckers and mandibles of a Vampire Blood Hound from Procyon-2. The simultaneous thought that panicked the lot of them was that they had before them five Vampire Blood Hounds and it was do or die for them at that very moment.

There followed an episode of barbarism, of which everyone involved was subsequently quite ashamed. At the end of it, one of the Snakes was dead, another butt-head was bleeding to death on the deck, the Arachnid had broken a hairy fore-leg, and most everyone else was bruised and battered and spattered with blood, their own or other peoples', and all five enviro-suited beings had been spaced out of the airlock.

General guilt followed hard upon.

"What have we done? What have we done?" cried the half-breed, her breath still sobbing from the effort of doing it.

"We've saved everybody's lives," said Church, who hadn't stopped to think yet. "It's all right. We did what we had to do."

"We could have checked the passenger list," the dumpy female said thoughtfully. Her disheveled hair and broken nails attested that she too had taken her part in the panic.

"We didn't have time," said the Stellar Beauty Queen, who had a long and beautiful neck, which was now visible again.

"My God! Look! One of them is still hanging on!" Miranon cried, and it was true. Out of the viewport they could see that one of the enviro-suits was clinging to the hull.

"I'll get a robot and shove it off!" Church yelled. "Come on, Pock!"

"It's not necessary," said the Stellar Beauty Queen. "What can it do to us out there?"

The pubescent male humanoid stared out of the viewport, fascinated by the being clinging for its life to the hull. "Can it get in?"

"No," said the dumpy female. "Not from out there."

"It will freeze, anyway," said Miranon. "Pretty soon."

"Not necessarily," the dumpy female replied. "It depends on what it is."

"Here's the passenger list," Eloise announced. "I have two of them. This one lists our original complement of passengers. This one --" Eloise's smile became wider and brighter than ever. "This one is our new list." And she began starring the enviro-suited passengers and deleting their names.

"Wait!" Church took the comp pad from her, prying her fingers away gently.

The Journey Steward, trembling, slipped to the deck and reached with both hands for her foot.

"Eloise," said the dumpy female gently, "Could you go and point your salt-shaker at the butt-headed humanoid who's bleeding on the deck over there?"

"Oh!" Eloise pulled herself together. "Of course. But they're expendable, aren't they? The butt-heads?"

"Yes," said the dumpy female. "But we still have to be sorry when they go."

"Look at this," said Church, scanning the passenger list. "This one is a Vampire Blood Hound from Procyon-2! We were right!"

Everyone felt a lot better.

"What about this one?" the pubescent male asked. His name was Axel. He was still staring out the viewport at the enviro-suit clinging to the hull.

The Stellar Beauty Queen took the newest passenger list from Church, accidentally brushing one of his fingers. Church swallowed hard.

"There's no way of telling, I'm afraid," she said. "It could be Pab-Luok Kassom-Fobliedo, a Wexel-Hoth-Rit from Sploth. that's Rigel-4. Or it could be a Barian, or the Barian's mate."

"That might present difficulties," Pock put forward. "If it is the Barian, and we have spaced its mate --"

"We don't want to get anywhere near it," said the dumpy female.

"Or it could be the Vampire Blood Hound. Or the Tenwardian Dwarf."

"A Tenwardian Dwarf!" breathed Axel. "Wow. We have to find out. Isn't there any way of telling? When they're inside a suit?"

"Not by looking at it. If it's still there in a hundred years or so," the dumpy female told him, "then it's probably the Dwarf. They live to be four hundred, or thereabouts."

Ten days later the butt-head died. When they spaced him the enviro-suit, still clinging to the hull, made hash of the dead body and devoured it.

"That's it," said Church. "It must be the Vampire Blood Hound. Let's get the robot."

"No," said the Stellar Beauty Queen, "it could still be the Dwarf. He might just be really, really hungry."


	7. Chapter 7

CHAPTER SEVEN

In Which the Survivors Discover an Alternate Source of Food,

and the Arachnid Makes a Bid for Supremacy

"Hey!" said Church, when he'd had time to think about it, "Aren't incompatible species like Vampire Blood Hounds usually kept separate on shuttle services like this one? Why weren't those suits in their own environments in first class?"

"For that matter," said the dumpy female, who told everyone, now that they had noticed her, that her name was Polydora, "Why weren't you in first class, Cynthia?" (The Stellar Beauty Queen's registered name was Virginia Lola Firebrand, but her mother had called her Cynthia before she was optioned, and she preferred that name).

"First class was all booked up," Cynthia replied. She was doing what so many of them spent many of their waking hours doing; trying to find a way to prepare Fringian mushrooms so that they would not tasted like Fringian mushrooms.

"Booked up?" said Church. "You mean --? Hey, Eloise!" he called across the cabin. Eloise was serving complimentary drinks.

"Yes? Can I help you?"

"Who's in first class?"

"Why, I don't know. That's not my department. First class has its own special Journey Steward to look after our first class patrons."

"You mean -- someone else could be down there? Right now?" asked Cynthia.

"And they could have their own supply of food, or even better --"

"Their own food reproduction unit! Come on!"

Cynthia abandoned the mushrooms. Nobody cared. Eloise followed in the wake of the rush toward the hatch door marked "For Crew Use Only" that led below to the first class cabin, calling after them that the Shuttle Services rules stated very clearly that no one was to go belowdecks from the main cabin to the first class cabin while the shuttle was in transit.

The remains of the first class journey steward were found outside the cabin door. They sent Eloise for a plastic bag to keep her occupied. The cabin door was locked.

Church banged on the door. "Hey! You beings all right in there? We're from the main cabin. As you know, there's been a terrible accident --"

"It is logical to assume," said Pock, who as usual had followed Church, "that they are not answering for one of two reasons, namely --"

"Pock, that's pretty obvious," said Cynthia, and she banged on the door with her shapely hand. "Anyone in there?"

"They're in there," Church decided grimly, "and they've got food. I'm positive."

"Illogical," Pock responded. "Their lack of reply may indicate --"

"I'm telling you!"

"Enough!" rasped the half-breed. "All I want to know is, are they in there, what are they, and are they carrying any live Wortrot snakes -- which I really crave, about half the time, except when all I want is a really thick ham sandwich with cheese and tomato and lots of mustard and lettuce --"

"Oh, stop, stop," begged Cynthia.

"The question is," Polydora said, "are they still in there, and what are they? Because what they are will of course determine what kind of food they are consuming."

"Unless they're all dead," Miranon pointed out.

"I want a banana," the Darthian cried. "Even just one banana..."

"Let's break the door down," said Church.

"But what if they are Rhinopods? Or just Alliandamorians, and their atmosphere is poisonous?" Polydora asked.

"I'm willing to risk it," said Church, "for a steak with onions, a baked potato with butter and peas, and a glass of milk!"

"All right," said Miranon, the Ngon half-breed. "It is a good day to eat potatoes."

"I want some too!" said Axel. "Except for the milk."

"I will assist," said Pock, "though the odds of our success --"

"You'll drink the milk!" yelled Church, "and you will like it!" and he slammed into the door.

After everyone had crashed their shoulders into it a couple of times Polydora wrapped her hand in plastic, picked up the dead journey steward's hand and ran his thumb over the key pad. The door opened. A pleasant rush of cool, fresh, oxygen-based atmosphere rushed over them, followed by an odor that they knew all too well.

"Oh, no," said Polydora. "Not..."

But it was. They stepped inside the first class cabin and found there a whole pod of excited Fringian mushrooms, who had died at the apotheosis of their existence, taking advantage of their unlimited travel allowances, to tour the galaxy.

"Oh CURSE these Fringian mushrooms!" cried Axel.

And they did.

There were those who claimed that they could tell the difference between fresh Fringian mushroom, reproduced fresh Fringian mushroom, and tinned Fringian mushroom. There were also those who said they could tell the difference, but that it didn't matter a rat's ass.

Meanwhile the female Arachnid had been unusually silent of late. Since she was always pretty quiet no one really noticed. The ship had a standard setting for day and night rotations. No one got to vote on these as they were set automatically by the ship's computer and nobody could get onto the bridge to change them, since the bridge was still sealed. Miranon thought that this was probably for the best, since if there had been an open discussion and a vote on how long the days and nights on board ought to be, several beings -- like Cynthia, for example, or herself, who liked a good eight-to-ten hours of sleep at night, could probably commit mayhem if anyone tried to mess with it, while the remaining Snake would probably go mad at the realization that her native forty-day cycle was possible, but that nobody was going to vote with her.

People had pretty much eaten or slept when they liked, whether the ship had softened the lights to the artificial "night" cycle, or not. Once the first class cabins were liberated (and cleaned up), after a very short discussion that firmly quashed any individual from taking the cabin for themselves, the survivors took to using it as the sleeping quarters, as the seats down there were movable, and the carpeting thicker.

The Arachnid stopped sleeping, but that didn't bother anyone. One "morning" a couple of people began to notice an extremely strong, almost pulsing smell. It got into everything. It was overpowering. Polydora, upon waking that morning, locked herself into one of the bathrooms, turned the fan to "hi" and told everyone who knocked that she was sick. They believed her. Everyone started having the wildest, strangest thoughts and for three or four days no one complained about the food. Everyone just ate, and ate, and thought things about one another, and themselves, and themselves in conjunction with one or another (or more), that were barely anatomically possible, and sweated a lot. Axel, panting, locked himself in the other upstairs bathroom.

The Darthian youth buckled first. He cornered the Snake, who was the only remaining female besides Polydora close to his size, between two rows of seats, and babbling incoherently about species compatibility and the necessity of eating part of the ship, tried to find an opening in which to initiate sexual intercourse with her. The Snake bit him, which no one took exception to. When she kept biting him, biting and biting, and wasn't letting go between bites but was swallowing -- everyone thought they'd both gotten completely out of hand but by then the Darthian was actually dead and the Snake wouldn't stop eating him so they spaced her. The enviro-suit on the hull carried on where the Snake had left off. Eloise remarked that the Darthian orphan had been as good as dead anyway since she had never found the micro-jewel to his ido-family bracelet, and somehow that even made sense to people at the time.

There was a great deal of sleeping around during this time, as though a compulsion had come over all of them. Thus it came as no surprise one morning to find that the male Arachnid's cocoon had been ripped open in the night and the female and male Arachnids were up on the ceiling bestriding one another, very firmly and deeply connected. Everyone tried not to look up.

So it was a long time before they noticed that the female had eaten her mate's head, and was proceeding to devour his body, which was still attached to her. During the next days everyone was fairly groggy as that strange clinging, compelling scent wore off and everyone did a lot of actual sleeping. But then it was difficult not to notice the eggs.

They were everywhere. Absolutely everywhere. They were about the size of a softball and it was difficult not to step on them. Everyone's first polite reaction was pleased and congratulatory towards the Arachnid, but there were more and more and more of these eggs spewing out of her where she crouched, her mate gone, still connected to the ceiling. And then everyone noticed that each single egg contained a little Arachnid, fully formed and waiting to be born.

Polydora was at the forward hatch, filling the airlock and spacing them. The half-breed started shoveling the things toward her. Pock and Church went below and dialed the hatch off the first class cabin, and the Stellar Beauty Queen, Axel and Eloise shoved the things at them as fast as they could gather them up.

"How long do these things take to hatch?" Church yelled.

There was a pause. He thought Pock hadn't heard him. And then, "I do not know," the Pointy-Eared Person said.

"What are you, stupid?" yelled Church.

Pock stomped off -- but it was only because stomping dented the eggs and often killed the little insect inside. Soon they were all stomping and shoveling, shoveling and stomping, while more and more eggs poured from the body of the female Arachnid.

"Polydora says we have one and a half more days before these things start to hatch," the half-breed gasped to Church and Cynthia as she passed more eggs down below. "She says try and stomp the bloated-looking ones. They're the oldest and they'll hatch first."

"But they're on the bottom!" yelled Axel.

"I know! Try!"

"How does she know when they'll hatch?" called Church, loud enough so that Pock would hear. Pock was imperviously stomping. This annoyed Church.

"She's some kind of doctor of science."

"A doctor? She didn't tell us she's a doctor."

"Not a medical doctor," Melanon huffed. "A doctor of science. Philosophy of science. Something like that. It just means she knows a lot."

"What will she do," Cynthia asked Polydora, looking up at the female Arachnid, still pouring out eggs in a seemingly endless supply, "when she realizes what we're doing to her eggs?"

"I don't know," Polydora replied. "A great deal is known, of course, about Arachnid mating and breeding habits, but not under these extraordinary circumstances."

"What do they eat?" Cynthia asked her next. "The little ones, I mean."

"Everything," said Polydora. "Now, hurry."

They won, of course, or an Arachnid would be writing this story, and all the colors would have been described three-dimensionally. They shoveled out the eggs, they crushed the heads of the little ones that hatched and shoved them into the airlock as fast as they could. The enviro-suit on the hull was lost for four days in a storm of pale Arachnid eggs as they fell away into space.

They had to torch the Arachnid and the cocoon to get them off the ceiling. The female Arachnid never moved as they brought her down, broke her up so she'd fit in the airlock, and spaced her remains.

Our heroes sat down then to a huge feast of Fringian mushrooms, and after four days with no time to eat, they were delicious.


	8. Chapter 8

CHAPTER EIGHT

In Which Our Heroes Take Control of the Bridge,

and Then Decide What They're Going To Do With It

Long, long, long were the days on the space craft Shepherd of the Stars as it wended its long way home. There was very little to do, and all too many hours to do it in. The mercy was there were only fifteen beings left alive on a ship that could accommodate seventy to ninety-six passengers, depending on the species. This was a really good thing because they were beginning to get on each others' nerves.

"Will you stop following me around!" Cynthia snapped at Axel, who was always staring at her, hanging around just out of reach.

"I can't help it! You're so beautiful!" and the little pubescent burst into tears and ran and locked himself in the bathroom. He didn't come out for days.

"You must be used to it by now," Miranon commented. "Guys staring at your wherever you go." Miranon had gotten the idea to check through all the hand-held luggage on board once again, and Cynthia was helping her. The first time through, they had found a small pack of dried apricots. That had been a night to remember.

"Of course," said Cynthia. "But not all the time. I mean, after a gig, acting or modeling, we're allowed to go home. The people who look after us at home are Drones; it's planned that way, so we can have a rest. There are no vibes from Drones; none. I can just be who I am."

"And what's that?"

"To be perfectly honest," Cynthia replied, "I'm not sure. I haven't had much time to myself since I was seven years old. I can walk, stand, turn, smile, make charming conversation, and be beautiful. I don't know much else."

"Don't you have any hobbies?"

"Of course. Tennis, swimming and horseback riding are compulsory for Stellar Beauty Queens."

"No, I mean, don't you have any interests of your own."

"I will, when I've worked off my contracts. I'm going to get my face fixed. And maybe my legs, too. Though, when I can wear ordinary clothes, maybe they won't show so much. And then I'm going to go everywhere, do everything."

For just a moment, for the first time, Miranon could see an expression on the Stellar Beauty Queen's face, other than her usual look of glowing benign detachment, or pleasant sympathy. "You're going to fix your face?"

Cynthia looked back at her, and the genuine passion in her face was gone. "Of course. You know what happens when I go out looking like this? If I'm every going to have a life of my own, I've got to fix my face. That's why I've got to get back. I've got six Brithian years to work off on my contract, and unnecessary travel time is deducted. And boy is this unnecessary! What about you, Miranon. What are your interests?"

"Universal peace between all species."

"Are you serious?"

Miranon's pale reptilian eye, and her dark humanoid one, measured Cynthia's serene face levelly. "I have to be."

Church was building a backgammon set out of someone's briefcase, scrounging the markers and dice from the flotsam and jetsam in the cabin. Pock was rewiring an automatic pencil with an alarm clock, so that the pencil would go "ding" when you started and finished writing with it. At the same time he was explaining to Church at great length that he was building his backgammon set incorrectly.

Polydora was disassembling some of the seats in the main cabin so that they could build a table and not have to eat or work off little trays anymore, when Cynthia and Miranon called over to her, "Rom and Rem aren't in the viewport anymore. What does that mean? Aren't we going there anymore? Is that a problem?"

"Yes," said Polydora, when she looked at the view screen. "This is a problem."

"What's the problem, ladies?" Church asked. "Anything we can do?"

"We no longer seem to be heading for Rom and Rem," said Polydora. "Which means, either the nav computer has malfunctioned --"

"Or the view screen."

"I was going to say."

"Well, what do we do?" Cynthia asked. "I don't want to be drifting out here just going no where. I've got to get back."

"We all want to get back," Miranon assured her.

"Don't worry," said Church. "We'll get you home."

"Yeah? How?"

"We must access the bridge, of course." said Polydora.

The bridge, however, had been sealed by the Navigator prior to his attempted suicide and subsequent death.

"Pock," said Church, "can we somehow access the TECH TECH TECH TECH TECH and TECH TECH TECH the TECH TECH to the TECH TECH TECH, thus TECH TECH TECH TECH?"

"You speak Technobabble really well," Miranon complimented him.

"It was my second language," Church replied, but he was smiling at Cynthia who said, "I'll bet."

While Church and Pock removed the wall panel to access the manual override on the door controls to the bridge, Polydora went to the crew storage closet and brought back an ax.

"No!

No!" Church told her, taking it from her. "You'll break the door!"

"That's the idea. It's broken already. The door has been sealed shut. On an automatic hatchway, that pretty much means it's broken."

"We can fix it, really." Church stowed the ax in a cupboard high out of Polydora's reach. Then he and Pock went back to work on the control panel, arguing intensely.

Polydora sighed, got out her spanner and went back to dismantling the seats.

The following day Church got down the ax and explained to the ladies at great length that his and Pock's work on the control panel had given them the understanding of where, exactly, to hit the door with the ax and precisely how hard, without which understanding they might simply have battered the door down with no science whatsoever. When he had explained this sufficiently to be sure they all understood it, he then battered the door down with no science whatsoever.

The smell, from four disintegrating corpses, was something they all remembered, and had hoped never to smell again. Eloise, with a little tic showing at the corner of her smile, fetched the plastic bags and the spoons. She and Cynthia, Miranon and Polydora started in on cleaning up the bridge while Church and Pock put the ax away.

"I am the eldest," Pock was explaining to him, "and I have had the most experience in space flight. Thus, now that we have accessed the bridge, it is logical that I become the captain of this vessel."

"Now, wait," Church replied. "What makes you think you've had more experience than I have?"

"It is logical," Pock replied, lifting his eyebrows. "I am your senior by several years."

"That's beside the point. All right, I'm going to have to tell you. I am the best qualified by far to captain this ship, because I was once enrolled in the Fed Space School. That's right, I'm a Fed. I don't like to brag, but I once spent a season on a Fed star ship during which I, personally, saved the galaxy three times, two humanoid races and their planets on two separate occasions, and, on one occasion, the whole Pointy-Eared People. And I had four assists, as well."

"Your record fails to impress me," Pock replied, "because, as a Pointy-Eared Person, I, of course, cannot be impressed. But I acknowledge your superior claim to captain this vessel and I will support your fully as your second in command."

"Thanks, Pock. Let's go and tell the ladies."

Polydora had just finished spacing the last plastic bags full of the former inhabitants of the bridge. The job of cleaning up had been pretty awful since the black round worms of the Frog people had somehow gotten into what was left and rendered it writhing and squidgy.

The "ladies" on the bridge heard out Church's claim.

"I have the experience, I know how to run a tight ship according to Fed regulations and standards. I promise you, I will be a good leader and a fair captain, guaranteed by my training at the Fed Space School, and I will treat all my officers with the utmost respect, as long as ship's standards are maintained."

Cynthia, Miranon and Polydora looked at each other. Cynthia said, "All right, I've got to hear this. Who would you appoint as your officers?"

"Pock, here, is my second in command," Church said, smiling frankly. "Cynthia, you can be the security officer, or the ship's counselor, or an ensign, or -- you could be my personal yeoman if you just want to hang out here occasionally and not do much. Polydora, you're the medical officer, of course."

"My only scientific degree is in the philosophy of science. I am, in fact, a doctor of philosophy."

"Close enough. Miranon, you can be communications officer. That means you get to say, 'Hailing frequencies are open, Captain,' whenever I decide to contact someone or something out there."

"I see."

"Great. Axel, when he comes out of the bathroom, can be an ensign, and ask all the wide-eyed stupid questions. Any further discussion? Okay, dismissed. I said, dismissed."

The three women just looked at him. Finally Polydora said, "I'm afraid, Tim, that while you and Pock were putting away the ax, we women decided that the ones who cleaned up the bridge and made it habitable are the ones who are going to run it. We're taking these three front chairs. If you and Pock want to sit in those back two chairs and say, 'hailing frequencies are open' now and then, you're welcome to do so."

"No, wait. I told you, I trained as a Fed officer. And once a Fed, always a Fed, as everyone knows. I know how ships work, and I'm the one who should be running it."

"You know how to navigate a ship?"

"Well sure I do! You just -- well, you sit there on the left, and you touch those buttons and lay in a course. Or, the computer does."

"Oh, come on, no he doesn't," Miranon protested. "Everyone knows Fed ships' navigation is self-operating. That's why their most junior ensigns are given that job."

"But it works!" Tim told her.

"It won't necessarily work for us," Polydora said. "This is not a Fed ship."

"Besides!" Miranon continued. "Feds have a religious belief that they can measure speeds that are faster than the speed of light, have you heard that? They think there's a measure from one to ten, and sometimes even up to fourteen. Beyond light speed!"

"All right, Miranon," Polydora said. "You don't have to ridicule him anymore. You've made your point."

"But, honestly --"

"All right. Listen, Church," Cynthia said reasonably, "we've discussed it, and we don't really need a captain. I mean, we're all agreed about where we're headed -- toward the one solar system our computer actually recognizes. So -- we fixed the glitch while you were putting the ax away, and we're on our way again. We don't need a command structure."

"But -- this is a ship. It's got to have a command structure!" Church was getting very upset.

"If you want to go by the book," Miranon reminded him, "then Eloise, as the remaining crew member attached to this vessel, is the captain."

"No way!" said Church.

"Right," said Polydora. "We have seventy-five years of traveling together before us. We're much more likely to survive without killing each other if we don't start forming power relationships."

"But --" Church protested, "what about when we meet strange beings from other worlds whose planets are in trouble? Who's going to say, I'm the Captain, and this is what we're going to do?"

"No one," said Polydora firmly. "I, for one, want to get home. As quickly as possible. I have a large community of friends, an extended family, a fascinating job -- and a new grandchild, whom I'd like to meet before she dies of old age. So I say, no side trips, no heroics -- let's just get home as fast as we can."

"Right!" said Cynthia. "I vote for that."

"Me, too," said Miranon. "Don't you want to get home, Tim?"

"Well, yeah, okay, but if some alien being contacts us asking for help --"

"We run like mad. Agreed?"

The ladies agreed. Pock, after considering, decided that this was logical.

"But," said Church plaintively, "I wanted to be the captain!"

"All right, Tim. If it will make you feel better, we will call you Captain Church."

"Yes," said Church. "Please. It sounds so right."

And so our heroes determined their continuing mission -- to get home as quickly as possible, and get along together as best they could in the meantime.

"Captain Church," Tim went around muttering. "Captain Church."

"Thank the Gods he's not going to be commanding us," Miranon said.

"Right," said Cynthia. "Guess what he'd want me to do?"

"Even worse," Polydora reminded them, "he is a Fed. Before long, we'd be subjected to episodes. Then we would never get home."

"At least we'd never die," Miranon quipped.

"After awhile," Cynthia said, "we might want to. Listen, is that really Rom and Rem? Are we really headed for home?"

"I truly hope so," was all Polydora would say.


	9. Chapter 9

66

SHEP/Wolf

CHAPTER NINE

In Which the Space Shuttle Shep Meets the Good Ship YAGE,

and there are Disastrous Consequences

Time passed inside the little ship, and, it was to be hoped, space passed outside of it.

Polydora, having built a work table in the main cabin, appropriated one of the blankets, and began a needlework rendition of the Wagnerian Ring Cycle in two-dimensional imagery. She told Cynthia she'd always wanted to do this, but had never had the time before.

"Hey, Cynthia! Polydora! There's a ship on the view screen! What do I do? Ignore her?"

Everyone within hearing made their way to the bridge, where Axel was staring at the view screen. Polydora, Miranon and Cynthia took the front seats, since they had cleaned up the place, and the guys sat in back. Eloise stood in the doorway explaining for the hundredth time that passengers were not allowed on the bridge until Pock, at Church's insistence, pinched her, and she went to sleep.

No one knew why a pinch to the backside from a Pointy-Eared male would put any sentient being to sleep. Scientists postulated that the very thought of receiving a pass from a being purported to be passionless was enough to make anyone pass out from boredom. The research was not considered to be conclusive as yet; Pointy-Eared subjects refused to cooperate. However, it was a great way of getting Eloise out of the way without having to worry about what she might be doing to herself.

"Oh my God," said Cynthia. "Is that --?

"Yes," said Polydora. "It's a Fed ship. It's matching speeds with us."

"What have we done?" rasped Miranon. "Church! There's a Fed ship hailing us and I say if it's your fault we should send you to join them."

"It can't be a Fed ship." Church protested. "There aren't any Fed ships out here. Unless..."

"I heard a rumor," said Cynthia, "that some Fed ship got beamed 'way the hell out across the galaxy and is afraid to go back --"

"That's not true!" Church insisted.

"-- because they started a war, and have been charged with fraternizing with the enemy,"

Polydora agreed. "I've heard that too."

"It isn't true!"

"But that is a Fed ship, right?" Miranon pointed out. "What's she called? Her ident-code's been partially disintegrated. There it is, she's the YAGE."

"The 'YAGE'?" Polydora asked. "That doesn't sound right."

"That's all I'm picking up," Miranon insisted.

"Maybe she changed her name," Cynthia murmured. "Maybe she's ashamed, and doesn't want to be recognized."

"That's not true!"

"Sit down, Church!" Polydora told him.

"Uh, oh," said Miranon. "One of you guys better say, 'Hailing frequencies open.' I think she's trying to contact us."

"We don't say that yet!" Church sat down, disgusted.

"What button do I press?" asked Cynthia. "Which frequencies are the Fed ones?"

"The loud ones," said Polydora resignedly, as the captain of the Fed Ship YAGE came into view.

Somehow the Fed communication blotted out the bridge view screen and came over as vid. No one could figure out how they did that. Even Church could only say it was a special effect.

"...is Captain Jane Cathaway of the Fed ship...we are hailing the SHEP. Please respond."

"The SHEP? What's she talking about?"

"Some of the paint must have been scraped off our bow," Miranon said. "Don't worry about it. Let her talk."

The Captain continued. "Our mission is peaceful. We mean you no harm." She paused expectantly, and smiled. It was frightening.

Polydora touched a switch and replied, "All right. We mean you no harm either. At least, not immediately."

"No! No! No!" cried Church, anguished. "That's not what you're supposed to say. Here, let me say, I'm Captain Church of the Shuttle Shepherd of the Stars --"

"Hush!" said Polydora. "Please. Sorry, Captain Cathaway. What did you say your mission was?"

A young man stepped into view beside his Captain. Strangely, he looked a lot like Church. Church claimed later that nothing could be read into this; he looked like a lot of Feds, since almost all the males look pretty much alike.

The young man said eagerly, "Our mission is to seek out --"

"Not now," said Cathaway, cutting him off. She smiled again into the vid camera. The crew of the Shep winced. "Did you know that you have an alien life form clinging to your hull? Our wide array of scientific, engineering and medical instruments clearly indicate that a living alien being is clinging to your hull. If you don't believe me, I would be very happy to bring you aboard my ship, by means of a convenient transportation device our technology allows us, teach you to use our equipment while enjoying the hospitality of my comfortable, state-of-the-imagination vessel and uniformed crew, and allow you to determine for yourselves that there is, in fact, an alien life form clinging to your hull. Even though this might be extremely inconvenient to the continuation of our mission, helping other beings to learn how superior we are is our primary goal." The vid camera moved closer to her on a hidden signal, probably from a director, without whom no Fed ever made a move. "Believe me. I'm speaking the truth."

"It's all right," Polydora said. "We believe you. We know."

"You know that you have an alien being clinging to your hull?"

"Yes. We put it there."

"You --?" The screen went blank, and then the stars came back.

"What happened?" Miranon asked. "I didn't touch anything."

"Nothing happened." Polydora got out her sewing.

"The Feds are just carrying out obligatory dialogue," Church explained. "There's a rule that every time something happens, everyone on the bridge gets to say something."

Cathaway reappeared on the view screen. She was smiling. Tightly.

"You put an alien being out on your hull. That's not very nice."

"That had nothing to do with it," Polydora told her.

"Well then, if you don't mind, we will bring it aboard our ship and ask it if it wants to be out on your hull, or if it needs us to save its planet or anything. All right? Good."

The Feds cut the communication.

Axel slipped out of the doorway and stood next to Polydora's chair. "Aren't you going to warn them? That it might be a Vampire Blood Hound? A really hungry one?"

"There's no point," said Polydora.

"She's right," said Church. "They'd just want to communicate with it."

"Besides," asked Cynthia, "aren't you guys dying to know whether it's the Dwarf, the Barian, or what? Without actually dying, I mean."

"But will they tell us?" asked Axel, looking out at the Good Ship Yage, which, since it had come upon them and matched speeds facing them, was now traveling backwards at sol-speed, since the Shep, in front of it, was moving on without pause toward its programmed destination. It was a strange thing for a ship to do, but probably their director had ordered it done without thinking how strange it really was, because it made a better visual from the Fed point of view.

"What do you think, Church?" Miranon asked harshly. It was actually just a friendly question; it was her voice that made it sound like a threat.

"Of course," Church responded cheerfully, nonetheless. "The Feds will tell people anything. They love sharing what they know."

"In this case," Cynthia reminded them, "there are other ways of finding out if it's the Vampire. They may be too busy to tell us, themselves."

Axel watched closely, and sure enough in due course the suit disappeared from the hull where it had been clinging. Not long after, the view screen suddenly showed a vid shot of the interior of the Yage, with the camera panning across the Yage's bridge. No one understood how this was possible. Church reminded them that strange things happen in space, and that it was probably another special effect.

At any rate, it was clear from the carnage and from the position of the wounds, that the Good Ship Yage had, without taking any precautions, transported an extremely hungry Vampire Blood Hound aboard their ship, and as every one of the Fed's company was, predictably, a humanoid, whether butt-headed or smooth, every one of them was Vampire food already, or would be real soon.

"So," said Church, as they left the Fed ship, an almost empty and extremely deadly hull, drifting in space, behind them, "That's the end of the Yage."

"I doubt it," muttered Miranon. "You can't kill those things."

Very strangely, it was only just a week later that our heroes were called to the bridge again, over the protests of Eloise, until Pock finally put her to sleep.

"What's going on?" asked Cynthia, taking her seat. "What's the likelihood that we would actually run into two things within a week in the vast reaches of uncharted space?"

"Pretty small," Polydora agreed. "What is it, Axel? What do you see?"

"Well, that!" Axel pointed at the view screen.

"Can't you make it any bigger?" asked Church.

"What do you mean? The view screen is always set on the highest setting. What do you think, I'd sit here looking at things from far away when I could see them close up?"

"I was just asking --"

"Hush. It will be bigger when we're closer," Polydora said reasonably. "And I'm afraid it's an irregularity in the time-space continuum."

"How do you know?" asked Cynthia.

"It looks like one."

"What can we do?" asked Cynthia. "Change course?"

"I'm afraid not. They're not actually visible, you see, until you're well inside them."

"Inside them? But that means --"

"Yes. We can't be exactly sure when we entered it, since our equipment will be affected, now that we're inside."

"What do we do?"

"Pock," Polydora asked, "How long before we reach it? The bit we can see?"

After a moment Pocket answered, "I do not know."

"I thought you Pointy-Eared People knew that sort of thing easy!" yelled Church. "What are you, stupid?"

"That's enough," Polydora said.

They approached what seemed to be a rift in space, and passed through it, and then it was gone.

"What happened?" asked Axel.

"Nothing," said Polydora. "I think we just passed through a mirror reflection of something that had already happened to us."

"How do you know?" asked Cynthia.

"TECH TECH TECH TECH TECH TECH TECH?" asked Church.

"Oh don't be silly," said Polydora. "Because nothing happened, of course."

"Look!" yelled Axel. "There's the Fed ship Yage again! Is it the Vampire? Is it coming after us?"

"Oh my Gods," said Miranon, "it's hailing us. What do I do?"

"Don't answer," said Polydora. "Just ignore it."

"It's the Vampire!" cried Axel. "Run! Hide!"

"I'm afraid not," said Polydora. "I think it's them; the Yage. They're stuck in the same space-time rift that we are. We have to get through it in order to get home."

"But doesn't that mean --" asked Cynthia.

"I'm afraid so. We're going to meet them over, and over, and over, and over again --"

"Oh no!"

"So don't answer them, Miranon. Just...leave them alone."


	10. Chapter 10

78

SHEP/Wolf

CHAPTER TEN

In Which Our Heroes Get To Know One Another

-- Rather Better Than They Would Like

"Listen!" yelled Church, "If something doesn't happen soon, I'm going to make something happen!"

Polydora was disassembling the seats in the rear of the main cabin and building a second room out of the parts. She neither paused nor looked up as Church came and stood over her.

"Did you hear me? Why can't we answer a distress call or stop off at a strange planet or at least explore something! Why?"

Polydora sighed. Miranon answered from the other side of the slowly rising wall. "Because we haven't met anything. There haven't been any distress calls, and we haven't been near a solar system in three months. What do you think this is, an episodic vid series? Space is actually very large."

"I KNOW THAT!" Church replied. "I happen to know quite a bit about space. And one of the things I know is, there has to be something to relieve the boredom between ports of call -- or things start happening on the ship."

"What kind of things?" Polydora stood up, and passed the parts of the disassembled seats to Miranon, who used them to build up the wall.

"Look, I'm not threatening anyone. I'm just telling you, if I go nuts from boredom, it isn't going to be pretty."

"Oh yeah?" asked Miranon, interested. "What will it look like?"

"Hush," said Polydora. "Actually, Captain Church, I think we've been very lucky thus far." She called him "Captain" because they had all found it was the best way to calm him down when he got excited. He always stood up straighter at the title, and he did so now, and looked even more pleased with himself than ordinarily. Polydora continued, "We are, as far as we can tell, on course, and on our way home. It is to be hoped that we have gotten free, somehow, of the rift in the space-time continuum that we experienced some time ago. If we start undergoing adventures such as you describe, we might find ourselves wandering aimlessly through space for over a hundred and seventy such episodes, with no hope of ever seeing our own people again."

"Why are you so afraid of episodes?" Church asked. "I like them. Why, when I was with the Feds --"

"Yeah, yeah, we've heard it," said Miranon.

"Hush!" said Polydora. "I am averse to getting involved in an episodic series," she told Church, "because I am not of the type that generally survives them."

"Sure you are!"

"No; I am female, and humanoid, but I am neither young, nor well-built in the stereotypical manner, nor am I anyone's love interest, and I am not in love with the Captain." She eyed him astringently. "I would last, perhaps, two episodes at the most."

"But that's not true!" Church assured her. "Well, I know it used to be like that, but things are different now. I'll prove it. Let's have an episode right now!" He headed for the bridge.

"Church! Wait!" Miranon shouted.

Polydora didn't bother to yell; she took off after him as fast as she could.

He never reached the bridge, however. Halfway there, a pale-eyed wild-haired effigy rose up before him from between two rows of seats and he came to a halt with a shout.

"Pain! Pain!" The effigy raised her shaking hands to her head. Then her eyes cleared, and she looked around and smiled. "Hello, everyone. I feel you're astonished to see me awake."

The Empath had recovered consciousness.

Everyone gathered around to get a good look at her awake. After all, it was the first thing that had happened on the ship in ages. She looked around at her audience, raised a hand to her head, and swayed on her feet. As she fell, with a grace not unlike that of a delicate flower of the moon of Ardos wilting in the sudden heat of the seven-day sun, Pock caught her in his arms. She looked up at him gratefully, but then her expression changed.

"Ew, not you," she said. She looked around the circle and her eyes lighted on Cynthia, standing in the back, head and shoulders above the rest. Her eyes widened with pleasure. "You!" Her voice fell, and she continued weakly, "Please...carry me...somewhere safe..." Her head lolled, but she recovered as Pock stoically transferred his burden to the Stellar Beauty Queen. "Careful! I'm not strong..."

Cynthia obligingly carried her down to the first class cabin and laid her on an extended seat farthest from the door. The Empath looked around. "No. Not here. Not so far away from...people...and feelings...you don't know what it's like, to be alone for so long." She gazed up at Cynthia, and Cynthia obligingly carried her back upstairs, dropped her in a chair, and walked away. It was Miranon who pressed the chair arm until the Empath was leaning back comfortably, and Eloise who was ready with complementary drinks and a dish of Fringian mushrooms. The Empath sighed bravely, watching Cynthia from across the room. "She is suffering," she confided, "from a great secret, a great pain. We must help her."

Eloise, from that moment, had plenty to do. The Empath, having slept long, didn't sleep much anymore, and every moment she needed another drink, or to have her head bathed, or her feet rubbed, or her seat adjusted, or a blanket found, or another blanket found because the first had a peculiar smell, or another blanket found after that because she didn't like the color, or a pillow for her back, or another pillow because the first one was so nice, and another pillow for her head, and then a replacement for the second pillow because it wasn't as nice as the third... everyone was relieved that the job of keeping Eloise busy was in competent hands.

She liked to lie in the main cabin. She was too weak, she said, to be up and about much. The first class cabin was too small, and besides, people only came there to sleep. She liked to be where the activity was; where people would come over and talk with her.

"Hi. I'm Captain Church. I hope Eloise is looking after you all right?"

"Captain Church?" With sudden energy, the Empath sat up, her eyes glittering. "You mean you're still alive? They let you live, after what you've done to us...?"

"Oh, no, no -- I wasn't an officer of this shuttle service. No, no -- I was elected to my present rank," he smiled at her. "I'm the most experienced man aboard, you see. I used to be with the Feds. Well, still am, actually. Once a Fed, always a Fed, everyone knows that."

"I see. Yes, of course." The Empath fell back gracefully against her cushions, and Eloise adjusted slightly the one under her right elbow. "I am called Thebes."

"Right. And you're from Zeba-5? One of the race of Zebans known for their empathic abilities and their talent for sensing the feelings of other beings."

"Not at all," Thebes answered. "I am completely telepathic. My people have always been able to read minds. You Feds simply didn't know what to do with our abilities, and after our first experiences with you, you minimized our abilities into 'feelings,' and we had to call them so. Pah." For someone so weak, Thebes could spit pretty far.

"You mean you really can read minds?"

"Yes."

"What am I thinking right now?"

Thebes closed her eyes. "You are thinking I can't read minds. You are also thinking, that if I can read minds, then you should find a way to get me to team up with you and then you would somehow be able to get control of the ship and then --"

"Sh! Sh! Sh! All right. I believe you."

"Is this guy bothering you?" Miranon, carrying a bunch of tools back to the building site, paused at Thebes' seat.

"Oh, no," Thebes assured her sweetly. "It's so kind of you both, to stop and speak to me..."

Miranon shifted her load. "Well, if he does, just tell me, or Polydora."

"I'm not bothering anyone!" Church replied, but Miranon had departed. "What is her problem?" he asked rhetorically.

"I can tell you," Thebes said with a sigh, but before she could do so, they were interrupted.

"Are you the Empath?" Axel leaned close.

"Do you want to know if I can read your mind?" Thebes asked him very sweetly. "Of course; you are thinking, 'Uklargy' -- whatever that means -- 'another butthead. She's so ugly -- I wonder if that thing on her head hurts.' No, it doesn't," she assured him kindly, but Axel had turned vermilion in distress and was backing swiftly away.

"That wasn't very nice," Church told her.

"He asked me," Thebes answered primly. "My people never lie, and we never prevaricate. I had to answer him. Don't you think it unkind, really, to shelter the very young...?" She looked up at him appealingly.

"Well yes, I mean -- no -- I mean, what were you going to say," he crouched down beside her, and spoke more quietly. "About Miranon? About her problem?"

She looked up at him. "Should I tell you?"

"I asked, didn't I?"

"Yes, yes, you did." Thebes sighed. "And I must answer. Very well. Miranon knows that she is suffering from a brain tumor. The size of a Belizian melon.1 She is afraid that she will die in agony away from the medical facilities that could ease her pain. She is also afraid that, owing to her -- uniqueness -- no one will ever love her." She looked up at him and sighed again. "So we must be very kind to her. Very, very kind."

Church walked consideringly to where Miranon was working on the wall. Thebes watched him go, and could hardly stop herself from grinning after him.

"Hey, let me help you there." Church grabbed a chairback and held it in place.

"Thanks -- I got it."

He smiled at her, his most winning smile, but she was concentrating on fixing the chair part in position and missed it. He considered several scenarios, and then decided: he would softly replace the lock of hair that was lying against her cheek -- he was looking at her smooth side -- and when she looked at him, he would say...

A moment later he picked himself up from the deck. "Hey! I just touched you! I didn't mean anything by it, what do you want?" But before she could answer, he walked -- limped -- away.

"What is his problem?" Miranon wondered allowed.

"I can tell you," the Theban pitched her voice to sound soft, yet it still could be heard across the main cabin. Miranon wandered over to where Eloise was spoon-feeding the Zeban a helping of Fringian mushrooms, which Thebes had not yet grown sick of.

"What did you want to tell me?"

"It's about Church," Thebes' voice sank to a weak but urgent whisper. "He is wondering how much longer he can keep from you..."

"Keep what from me?"

"Shhh...He is your brother. It was his mother that took part in the experiment to graft her species with that of her lover, and after you were born, abandoned you to your fathers' people --"

Miranon was already on her way.

It's not that Church couldn't hold his own in a fight. But when jumped by someone who throws herself roaring from halfway down a stairway onto your back and then, still roaring, lands on top of you on the floor proceeds to pound your head senseless into the deck -- Pock, Cynthia, Polydora and Axel all had to drag her off of him, and then hold her so she didn't go back and batter him some more. When asked, however, she would not explain. She simply said she had her reasons, and that she would do it again.

Church was put to bed in the first class cabin, and Eloise went down to point her salt shaker at him, for all the good that would do. They didn't have the more advanced salt shakers that could actually (so the Feds said) heal tissue and bone damage, cure headaches and disease. Church lay on his pallet moaning, "I only touched her. I swear to God I only touched her..." while Pock and Eloise tended his bruises with cold packs.

Upstairs in the main cabin Polydora told Cynthia to stay with Miranon while she talked to Thebes.

"Thebes," she gently and firmly took the Empath's hand, so that Thebes' eyes opened. "I understand from Eloise that you were talking to Miranon just before Miranon -- went down stairs."

"Yes," Thebes responded weakly. "Yes, Eloise. Where is she? I'm thirsty..."

"Thebes, what did Miranon say to you? Did you talk about anything?"

"Yes. She asked me...if I felt Captain Church was a danger to the ship. I had to answer her. My people always answer..."

"What did you tell her?"

"Captain Church...is planning to seize the ship. He has gotten in touch with the Fed ship Yage, and with their help will commandeer this vessel...You will all become Fed passengers..."

"Is that so?"

"Of course. I told you, my people never lie."

"And what about you? Are you going to be a Fed passenger?"

"Oh, no. I am an Empath. I will become an officer on board the Fed ship. I will wear the tightly fitting uniform so attractive on small female beings like myself."

"I see. That would explain why you never mentioned Church's plans before now."

"He...he asked me not to."

"Oh! You've discussed them with him?"

"Yes -- I mean -- no -- I mean --" but before she could explain, Thebes' weakness overcame her, and she gently fainted away, like the violet swamp-spore blooms of Grangel-2, that open only at the passing of the second moon at full, and then disappear again.

Polydora went below to talk to Church. Church, however, was in no case to be talking to anyone, since he was suffering a mild concussion and a great deal of pain from multiple bruises. Polydora did not space him on the evidence of the empath; instead she went to the bridge, called up the computer, and looked for any communications, on any level, going out from the Shep, that she might not know about.

There was no indication of any outward communication from the Shep, nor of any communication whatsoever from the Yage. Polydora made a few tests to assure herself that the computer was taking note of such things, and that no one had tampered with the records. Having done so, she leaned her elbows on the edge of the control bank and stared out the view finder at Rom and Rem, that seemed not the smallest bit closer after all their months of travel.

Cynthia came in and sat down next to her. "Polydora?"

"Mm?" She roused herself. "How is Miranon? Has she explained herself yet? And how is Church doing?"

"Miranon's not talking. Pock's with her. He's told her he'll pinch her if she heads down the stairs, so she's working on your wall, like a fury. Church is fine. Eloise is with him." She lowered her voice. "I want to talk about you."

"What about me?"

"I know you're very old --"

"Ha. That's because you're a baby."

"I'm twenty-two!" (All Stellar Beauty Queens are twenty-two from the time they actually reach that age, until their contracts run out seven years later).

"Seventy-two seems old to you. Seventy-three. I must have turned seventy-three by now."

"That's not what I want to talk about. Polydora, is it true that you are in fact a male reporter for the Galaxy News, surgically disguised to get the woman's view story of politics on Hogsbreath?"

Polydora burst into laughter. "What will that woman think of next?"

"Then it's not true?"

"I think what is true," Polydora said, containing herself, "is that Thebes' empathy is such that she is able to tell each of us what we least want to hear. I wonder what she told Pock about you."

Polydora was looking past Cynthia at that moment to see Pock stalking toward them from Thebes' bedside. He walked up to Cynthia, and without a word, backhanded her to the face. Fortunately, Cynthia, in the course of her training to be the vision of most beings' fantasy sexual partner, had been taught to defend herself, should any being bypass her obligatory bodyguard and attempt to make such fantasies into a reality. Cynthia blocked the blow with her arm. Unfortunately, Pointy-Eared-People being as strong as they are, the arm was broken at the contact. Cynthia didn't notice at the moment; she was busy kerwalloping Pock about the head and neck and screaming at him.

Pock eventually had to apologize. "Am I to understand that you are not one of the Pointy-Eared People who permitted herself to be sold to a corporate conglomerate and surgically modified to meet your current contractual obligations?"

"No! No, I'm not! I was an Arcturan, and I have papers to prove it!"

"Then -- I would like to point out -- that it is probable, given the information that was passed on to me -- that the Empath calling herself Thebes, who purports to read minds -- is telling fibs."

"Yes," said Polydora. "We had gathered that."

1 That's pretty big.


	11. Chapter 11

CHAPTER ELEVEN

In Which Our Heroes Learn To Hang Together --

Or Else They Will All Hang Separately

Before the discussion of the Zeban's truth-telling could be continued, Polydora was distracted by

Cynthia's realization that her arm really hurt, and was beginning to turn strange colors and swell up.

By the time Eloise and her ubiquitous salt-shaker had confirmed what the two were already pretty

certain of, that the arm was broken, and Pock had been left in mid-apology as the two went downstairs

to get the first aid kit and rig some kind of splint, Pock had decided it was time for someone who was reasonable and unemotional to go and deal with the Zeban Empath. Himself, of course.

"Excuse me. Thebes? I must speak with you."

Eloise was just returning to Thebes' chair-side from diagnosing Cynthia's broken arm. She tried to fend off Pock. "Shhh, can't you see she's asleep? We never disturb passengers who are sleeping."

Pock touched the button that moved Thebes' chairback into an upright position. The chair shot up, and Thebes' eyes shot open.

"She is now awake," Pock pointed out. "Please take this pillow downstairs to Cynthia's berth. I think she will need it for her arm."

"I was using that pillow," Thebes protested as Eloise obediently took it away.

"But you are not, at present. Now tell me, why did you inform me that Cynthia was a Pointy-Eared Person who accepted a contract with the Stellar Beauty Conglomerate, thus turning her back on her racial identity?"

"But -- it's true...!" Thebes groped for the button that would lower her chair back. It is more difficult to look feeble while sitting up.

"No, it is not true," Pock told her. "She has told me that she was born an Arcturan, and that she has papers to prove it."

"Oh -- that -- well," Thebes waved this aside airily. "Don't you know that at age eleven, at the beginning of puberty, Stellar Beauty Queens' memories of their childhood and their origins are erased? Of course she thinks she's from Arcturus. They all do, poor dears..."

"Then it is true?"

Thebes' eyes opened very wide. "Isn't that what I told you?"

"Yes, but...Perhaps, since she did not herself remember her origins, I should not have hit her quite so hard. Or should I have hit her harder?" He frowned, trying to work it out.

"Pock, listen to me," Thebes clutched his arm adoringly. "I have something else to tell you."

Church woke from an uncomfortable, aching sleep to find Miranon sitting beside him. "Hey -- whoa --"

"Relax. I'm not going to hurt you. Just tell me one thing. Do you know the scientist Russarl-Agwen-Nurtofistal?"

"Well, I've heard of him, of course, the famous experimental biologist --"

Miranon leaned closer. "Are you related to him in any way?"

"Related to him? Well, no -- I wish I was. He's really rich, isn't he? Owns the Biological Systems Enterprises Corporation that controls Orcan-6?"

"I wouldn't know," Miranon answered sarcastically. "He abandoned me as soon as he had completed the successful experiment. He was my biological father."

Church was staring up at the smooth half of Miranon's face that was her heritage from her humanoid, slightly-less famous and much less well-off mother. He moved a little so he could see the jutting brow and glittering eye that was her heritage from her famous, rich and capricious father. "And I'm supposed to be related to him?" He ran a hand across his own smooth face. Well, he needed a shave, but he wasn't in the least bit scaly.

"Thebes told me you're his son."

"And you believed her?"

"I think my father's capable of it." She rubbed the brow that was exactly like her father's.

"And that's why you jumped me?"

"Yeah. Well. Sorry about that. If you knew my father -- you'd understand."

"That's okay. I don't think I want to. So then --"

"What?"

"It's not true? About the brain tumor?"

"Brain tumor?"

"That Zeban told me you were depressed because you have a brain tumor."

"First I've heard of it. Shouldn't it hurt, or something?"

"Yeah. Probably. Then you don't --?"

"No, and I'm not depressed, either."

"Oh."

"Is that why --"

"Look, all I did was touch your face. I mean -- no offense, really."

"Yeah? Well, I spent twelve years on Minaous-4. Have you heard of rhinosquitos?"

"Four foot long flying insects that remove two pints of blood in three seconds by brushing against your skin? Yuck."

"I'm very sensitive to an unexpected light touch to any part of my body. On Minaous-4 you have to act fast. Once the rhinos tag you as having slow reflexes, they mob you, and you might as well just flush yourself down the toilet."

"I see. Well, your reaction seems perfectly reasonable under the circumstances. In both cases. And as soon as my cracked ribs heal, and my concussion, so that I only see one of the four of you at a time, I'll be happy to continue this discussion."

Miranon got up. "Well, anyway -- sorry."

"Right. Ask Eloise to bring me some more Fringian mushrooms, will you? And a drink."

"Right."

Just as Miranon moved to step over his recumbent form, the ship shuddered suddenly as though it had been hit, and the lights went out. Miranon cursed as she lost her balance, and Church yelled when she fell on top of him. Then he cursed, too.

"What happened?"

"I don't know."

A light blossomed at the end of the first class cabin. Polydora, sitting with Cynthia, turned on the flashlight she had hanging on the end of her com key. "Who is up on the bridge?" she asked, but she was on her way before anyone could answer. Cynthia followed her, painfully climbed the ladder one-handed after her in the reflected light from the flashlight above her. Miranon followed.

"What's going on?"

"I don't know. Polydora says someone's messing around on the bridge."

"Is it Axel? I'll kill that kid."

In the main cabin there was shouting and screaming, mostly of an hysterically accusatory nature. Polydora made her way to the bridge through the tumult. The door -- still broken -- had been barricaded with parts of the wall she and Miranon had been building. With the aid of the flashlight they gave Eloise to hold, Polydora, Miranon, Cynthia with one arm, and Axel pulled the obstructions out of their way. Thebes was still yelling and howling, so that by the time they had cleared themselves an entrance to the bridge, they knew who they would find there.

"Pock!" said Polydora as she pulled her way passed the last section of wall, "What are you doing in here?"

"He said he was going home!" Thebes howled. "All I said to him was --"

"What?" Miranon threw the Empath against the wall of the bridge and held her there. "What did you tell him?"

"I -- told him --"

"Why listen to her?" Cynthia asked. "She's only going to lie about it."

"I won't! I swear! What -- what's the matter with him?"

Polydora had pushed Pock out of the center chair on the bridge, sat down, and proceeded to talk very seriously with the computer. The lights went back on. The ship stopped shuddering. Soon, Rom and Rem could again be seen in the view finder, looking just as distant as ever. Everyone sighed with relief.

Polydora turned around in her seat. "Yes. What did you say to Pock? What made him come in here and readjust the ship's life support functions so that in just a few more minutes the ship would have been only suitable to support Caderean radishes while setting the ship's course for a post-nebulae dead zone?"

"A post-nebulae dead zone? Where? I want to see!" Church had found his way to the bridge, where all the excitement was.

"I want an answer!" Polydora insisted.

Everyone looked at Thebes. Thebes sniffed. "Look, it isn't my fault. I can't tell anybody anything they don't really want to believe. It's not my fault what they do about it."

"Oh yeah?" asked Miranon. She took Thebes roughly by the head and made her look at Pock, now shuddering uncontrollably in a corner of the bridge. "So that's not your fault, is it?"

"No," said Polydora, bending over Pock. "I'm afraid it isn't. I'm afraid that the very worst possible fate has happened to us. We have become trapped in a series of episodes."

"Yes!" shouted Church. "No more boredom! Things to happen! Things to see and explore! I am Captain Church! I AM Captain Church!"

"How often?" asked Cynthia, sitting down in the right-hand seat on the bridge. "What's our episodic tempo? Weekly? Monthly?"

"Every day?" Miranon let the empath go, and sat down in the left-hand seat.

"It's worse than that," Polydora told them. "Because what Pock is suffering at this moment is not connected to what Thebes told him, and what he deduced from the information she gave

him --"

"I knew it!" Church said. "I told him not to go figuring things out without asking me first! I told him!"

"Pock is suffering from a completely unrelated set of circumstances. And that means that not only are we trapped in an episodic field, but that episodic field is collapsing in on us, and if we don't get out of it, we're all going to die of exhaustion, overwork, and excessive exposure to scenes."

"Oh my Two-Headed God-Fish!" Miranon cried. She was a little mixed up, but no one corrected her. "What do we do?"

"Can't we just space him?" Cynthia asked. It had been hinted that Stellar Beauty Queens had their hearts wholly or partially removed during the course of their development, but nothing had been proved. "If we space him," she told everyone, "maybe the problem is just with him, and it'll go away."

"I don't think it will," Miranon said apologetically. She held out her hand. The firm green scales had faded to gray. Some of them were cracking. "Perhaps you don't understand. Look at this one." She held out her smooth, humanoid hand. The joints were swollen with arthritis; the skin was paper thin, limp, and blotched with age spots. "I don't know how it is, but I'm suddenly growing old."

Axel leaned heavily against the wall. "I'm pregnant! It kicked me! I'm pregnant..." he started to cry.

Eloise stepped inside the door. "Greetings," she spoke in a manly baritone. "I am an exalted being from the advanced culture of Billigoes-Myon-12."

"Oh don't talk nonsense!" Cynthia shouted. "There is no Billigoes-Myon-12!"

"Au contraire. That is what you puny brained humanoids are meant to think. I have taken over the body of your Journey Steward in order to look in and see whether any of you have advanced sufficiently so that we should actually speak to you."

"Quiet!" said Polydora.

Strangely enough, they all fell quiet.

"We will solve these problems. We must solve these problems. One by one, beginning with --" she pointed at Pock, still shuddering in the corner of the bridge, "him."


	12. Chapter 12

CHAPTER TWELVE

In Which Our Heroes Are Trapped In An Episodic Existence

From Which They Struggle To Escape With Their Lives

"Why him?" shrieked Axel. "I'm PREGNANT! What's in me? What is it? What do I do? AAUGH!"

Since Pock was in no state to pinch him, Church gave a try, but pubescent Trifillians, of which Axel was one, were known to be particularly hysterical during pregnancy. It was Eloise who led the screaming, sobbing pubescent male from the bridge, for though possessed by a higher being, some instincts in the Journey Steward were strong enough to break through; harassing a pregnant being was Not Done on the Shepherd of the Stars Shuttle Service; Eloise led him away to make him a complimentary drink and help him draw up his sexual harassment suit.

"Why must we solve Pock's problem first?" Miranon asked. Her voice was already quavering. "I could die of old age before you figure out what's the matter with him."

"I think we have to take these events in order," Polydora replied, "according to the laws of plot structure. If we circumvent these laws we could be overwhelmed by random events happening at all hours."

"Sounds like life," Cynthia remarked.

"Ah, but life at a tempo far too fast for our metabolisms. Let us employ order. Pock is suffering from a congenital condition of the Pointy-Eared People. I have seen it before."

"Have you treated it, doctor?" Miranon asked.

"Of course not, I'm not a medical doctor; I've told you that. No, I saw it on a documentary."

"Hey!" Church yelled suddenly. "There's a message coming in. It's coming from a space beacon -- we've just come in range."

"What does it say?" Miranon asked.

"No! No!" Polydora insisted. "We must stay on the subject of Pock."

"It says, 'hotdogs.'"

"What?"

"That's all. Just 'hotdogs.'"

"Let me see."

In the end, everyone had to look, but sure enough, the computer's translation of the message from the beacon in uninhabited space, was indubitably, "hotdogs." There was silence for a moment while everyone contemplated the image that word evoked in their minds. Polydora was the first to remember what had been interrupted.

"Pock is suffering from an urge that is completely normal for his people. Once every six rotation periods for his planet, his metabolism demands that he take a mate."

"WHAT!!" Cynthia recoiled.

"Relax. It must be a full-blooded Pointy-Eared mate, or his system will not be satisfied."

"He's going to be like that until he mates?"

"Well, I think so. He may start having hallucinations when his self-control gives out."

"What happens after that?" Church asked.

"Hey look! Another message!"

Everyone crowded around. Sure enough, another lone space beacon beamed a single message to their computer. "Tasty fries!"

This is not exactly what it said, of course, but that is how the computer translated it. Everyone on the bridge was silent for moment, as they attempted to keep their saliva in their mouths.

"As I was saying," Polydora swallowed decisively. "About Pock --"

"Maybe there'll be another one," Church exclaimed excitedly.

"Maybe they'll offer free samples!" Cynthia added hungrily.

"Maybe there'll be three right in a row," Miranon was praying as much as she was hoping, "and then there'll be --"

"Cold drinks!" the computer translated. "Hot meals! Fresh Salads! Stop at Mobab's Station, just off the Garden Planet of Specialty Restaurants, for the galaxy's best in dining. All tastes catered to."

"We can't stop," Polydora reasoned with them. "We want to get home, remember? We haven't time. We haven't any currency -- I'm sure of that. We have plenty of food --"

No one tried to discuss it with her. They began procedures to take them out of sol-speed and rendezvous with the space station.

"But what about Pock? He'll die!"

"There it is!" Miranon cried raspingly. "I can see it!"

"Specialty meals!" Cynthia exulted. "I'm going to eat myself into insatiability. I'm going to eat garlic. I'm going to eat avocados. I'm going to eat Devil's Quagmire Chocolate Cake!"

"I thought you Stellar Beauty Queens have food taboos against those things," Miranon said.

"I don't care. I'd pay a year of my life --"

"Me too."

"What about Pock?" Polydora asked plaintively, but she too was possessed with the thought of fresh meat, crisp salads, and toffee butter ice cream.

"Look! Another ship!"

"Just one? There should be hundreds, if they knew what was good for them."

"But this one is --"

Church was interrupted as their view screen was blotted out by a full scale picture of the bridge of the Good Ship Yage. Everyone stopped drooling. Everyone recoiled.

"What's happened to her hair?" Cynthia whispered.

"Sh. She can hear you."

"Greetings. I'm Captain Jane Cathaway of the Fed Ship Yage. We intercepted your request for reservations --"

"Who sent in reservations?" Polydora asked.

"I did," Church said. "We deserve it. We're going to have the best --"

Captain Cathaway raised her voice. "I want to assure you that we mean you no harm. There will be no trouble from my crew, so you have nothing to fear. Our ships' crews may be on leave at the same time, and sharing the same food facility. But I assure you, your civil rights and inalienable rights as alien beings will be meticulously respected. Even if we die for it."

"Uh, thanks," said Cynthia.

"Just a moment!" Polydora interrupted. "May I ask you a question, Captain Cathaway?"

The Captain's smile froze. Polydora winced. But Captain replied generously. "Of course you may ask me a question. Bearing in mind that I may not be able to answer it, owing to the fact that our policies dictate that some information must be kept from beings with inferior technology, such as

yours --"

"No, no, it's nothing like that. I just want to know, is your ship suffering from a collapsing multi-episodic field? Are you dealing with an unlimited number of plot developments simultaneously?" The Captain stared back at her, glassily. Polydora put it more simply: "Are too many things happening at once?"

The view screen went blank.

"Now you've done it," said Church.

"Done what? All I asked her --"

"They're probably just talking on their bridge. You know they always have to have talks on their bridge. Come on. Let's get ready to eat!"

But just as Cynthia got up from her chair, the vid screen blinked on a picture of Captain Cathaway, now in another room on the Yage. She smiled at them. "My officers and I would like to know where you got that information."

"What information?" Polydora asked. "I only asked you --"

"Oh, leave them alone. Let's go eat," Cynthia urged her, helping Miranon, one-handed, out of her chair.

An extremely reasonable looking Fed officer leaned forward to be in the picture. He said persuasively, "Can you tell us, how did you know what is happening on our ship ahead of the plot?"

"Our scripts are classified," Cathaway put in.

"I haven't seen your scripts. I am only asking because I believe that we are experiencing a collapsing episodic field which may also enclose your ship, since we are both trapped in the same rift in the time-space continuum."

"Nonsense," said Cathaway. "I never heard of such a thing."

Suddenly the wall behind her started blinking red and a siren went off. "Red alert," the computer informed the Fed Captain. "Red alert." A crewperson came running into the room, pulling down his tight-fitting velour uniform as he entered. He was an ordinary smooth-faced white male humanoid, with an interesting plastocene lump cosmetically attached to his head to make him look alien. "Captain!" He cried. "Captain!"

"What are you doing in here?"

"The com is down, I had to come and tell you -- seventeen more of the hamsters have fallen off of the treadmill. Power is down to nineteen percent. If the ionic dispersal rate of the hamster energy field isn't stopped soon -- we're going to be dead in space!"

"Captain!" Another smooth-faced white humanoid, this one female, and with a slightly different plasticene protrusion cosmetically attached to her head -- but not so that it would interfere with the accepted classical beauty of her face -- ran into the room. "Captain! Another six crew members are down with the unclassified space virus and -- we're out of coffee!"

"NO!" cried the Captain.

"Shut that thing off," the reasonable officer shouted, and the vid screen went blank, and the noise, mercifully, ceased.

"I told them what was happening," Polydora said. "Why wouldn't they listen to me? Why couldn't we discuss the collapsing episodic field and come up with some answers?"

"Come on, Polydora," Church steered her off the bridge. "Let's go eat. The Feds can't accept information like that from outsiders."

"Why not?"

"It's part of their publicity campaign always to appear superior to everyone else. In their vids, they always have to figure out everything themselves. Then they tell other people. Probably when we get back from lunch, there will be an urgent message from the Feds informing you that you -- with them -- are stuck in their collapsing episodic field, and they'll tell you what steps to take to solve the problem."

"They'll have solved it by then?"

"If you give them an hour, sure. Come on. Let's go have lunch."

"Lunch? I'm not just going to have lunch," Cynthia said. "I'm going to have -- everything."

"Lunch?" quavered Miranon. "Is it lunch? Where am I? Why are you walking so fast?"

They wisely left the docking procedures to the computer to work out with the space station's computer, and went to wait by the airlock.

"What about Pock?" Cynthia asked.

"He can't eat in his condition," Polydora replied. "By this stage, all of his systems have been redirected toward reproduction, and will remain so until his goal has been attained."

"That's okay," said Church. "We can bring him something."

The shuttle thumped into position with the space ship. The airlock hissed.

"Open it! Open it!"

They did so. They breathed in.

"I smell FOOD!"

They exited, to explore new worlds.


	13. Chapter 13

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

In Which Our Heroes Fraternize

-- Over Several Consecutive Meals --

With The Feds

"Wow!" was all Axel, Polydora, Cynthia, Miranon, Church, Eloise the Journey Steward, and Thebes the Empath could say, for it was indeed a restaurant, and the smell of many kinds of food wafted everywhere.

"Hey," Cynthia commented, when she had had time to look around. "I thought beings out here would be different. After all, we're in a completely different section of the galaxy. Shouldn't the life forms here be at least as different as they are, say on my home planet, where the sentient beings in the sea only barely resemble the ones that live on land?"

"Yeah, but remember," Church reminded her, "the Feds got here first."

"Yeah? So?"

He lowered his voice. "The Feds don't like differences. You'll never see real differences in places the Feds have got to. You'll just find the same old range of humanoids, from wild-haired primitive sexist butt-heads, to hyper-advanced asexual smoothies. That's all they like to see. So that's all you'll ever see."

"But -- what happens to everyone else? The Darthian pod-groups? The Tree people? The snakes? Semi-spatial group-identity individuals?"

Church said, even more quietly, "You don't want to know. The Feds' technology is really advanced, remember. What they don't want to consider, doesn't happen."

"How do they do it?"

"By careful budgeting, they say. Anything they don't want, they cut."

The maitre d' arrived, and because the Feds had already gotten there, he was just an ordinary butt-head humanoid. He smiled and gave them menus. "And what form of payment are you offering, may we ask? We like to get these practical matters cleared up in advance."

"Here, let me talk to him." Church shouldered his way past the crowd and bent to say a few words in the maitre d's ear. The maitre d's eyes opened wide.

"No? Truly? Oh, yes, yes, anything, please -- thank you!"

Thus it was that before sitting down to begin ordering, each member of the crew of the Shep was sent back to the shuttle to return with one small tin of Fringian Mushrooms. These were accepted by a crew of sous chefs escorted by armed guards to ensure against pilfering. For an extra tin, two of the guards remained at the Shep's airlock to ensure that the shuttle would not be boarded and sacked while the crew were dining out. They were given to understand that no matter what, or how much, they ordered, their bill had been paid. Fringian Mushrooms were not just rare, they were mythical, in these parts.

They ordered. It took a long time. It was fraught with interest and drama. Everyone was in a state of bliss. And then the food started coming, and bliss expanded. They were a happy crew.

Nothing much was said for a long time, aside from the ecstatic grunting noises indicating the food was more than acceptable, until everyone had eaten one or two meals. Thebes, who was not as deprived as the others, finished first, and tried to start conversations. Since no one would talk to her, she decided to go for a walk. Then Miranon began to cry because of the state of her teeth. Axel kept ordering things he didn't like, eating them voraciously, and then having to retire to the restroom -- pregnancy was being hard on him. Polydora had made her selections in reverse order to how filling they were; she was on her third meal, and still going strong. Cynthia cradled her broken arm and ate, one-handed, all the things she could cut by herself with a fork. She was on her third, fourth and fifth helping of Demon Quagmire Chocolate Cake; she liked to keep one in front of her just to look at, while she ate the other two; thus she had her cake and ate it too.1

Then, all at once, the whole crew was overcome by a wave of anguish and disgust, and each of them, simultaneously, groaned aloud. This is when, for the first time, they took a moment to look around the restaurant. The room of about thirty tables had filled up with crew members from the Fed ship, and almost all of them had ordered a tiny serving of Fringian mushrooms. It was the smell that filled the room when the waiting-beings lifted the dish covers that caused the wave of distress to assault our crew members. Each was fired with renewed vigor of appetite at the sight (and smell) of what they had to face again when they left. Each ordered another entire meal.

"What's the matter with them?" Axel muttered into his muesli -- which he did not like, but some voracious part of him was craving mercilessly. He stood up awkwardly, pressing his hand into his back, and shouted. "Why do they keep staring at us? What's the matter with you?" he stared wildly at the Feds around the restaurant, who had, in fact, been stealing covert glances at their table. Axel lost control. "We're people too! We're people too!" he shrieked, then he buried his face in his hands. He really was a shy fellow.

"What's the matter with him?" Miranon quavered irascibly. She had discovered white chocolate mousse, which presented no problem to her teeth and satisfied her in every way. Sitting with her back to the room, across from Axel, she had not noticed the Feds staring at them.

"It's not us," Church explained reasonably. He had decided, for his fourth meal, on breakfast. A whole plate of Melusian bacon had just been uncovered before his eyes. He was feeling very expansive. "It's Cynthia, the Stellar Beauty Queen."

"How rude," remarked Polydora.

"It's all right. I'm used to it." Staring at her last piece of Devil's Quagmire Chocolate Cake, she chose a Cracked Chocolate Banana Sundae to go with it, and a Deruvian Nut Cream Pastry to stand close by. "I don't care."

"Excuse me, gentle beings." They all looked up. And up. It was the reasonable officer from the Good Ship Yage. From this profile they could see that he had a tomahawk hanging from a ring in his nose. A tall red feather stuck out of his hair. "My name is Panting War Buffalo, and my Council name is He Who Observes All Signs Of Life. I'm the second officer of the Yage. I'd like to apologize for the behavior of my crew members. The truth is, we've been wandering around the galaxy for a long time, and none of us have seen the homely and familiar sight of a genuine Stellar Beauty Queen for so long, we'd almost forgotten what we're fighting for out here."

"Pah," said Cynthia. She did not in fact spit; she only made the sound. The contents of her mouth at that moment were too valuable.

"I beg pardon?"

Cynthia swallowed. She then turned her head and looked at him, and it was with a professional gaze. For a moment, before he could regain his famous calm demeanor, Panting War Buffalo resembled his name.

"I mean, cut the crap. Your ship is chock-full of discarded Stellar Beauty Queens. All our candidates are picked up by the Feds if their surgery isn't perfect and they don't make the grade required by our contracts. Where do you think they got so many unnaturally small and thin women? With stylized classic features? Who somehow never grow old? I don't know what your guys are staring at. But it shouldn't be me."

"It's me." Miranon began to cry quietly. Tears trickled down both halves of her lined and greying face, in channels that seemed to have been dug for the purpose. "They've never seen a half-breed before."

"That's not true," said Church. "The Feds have had lots of half-breeds."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yes; they are characterized by a deep division between their humanoid and alien halves. Often they try to repress one or the other, with the result that it simply strengthens the part of themselves that they most abhor. When I was with the Feds, I was in many episodes where --"

"Indeed," interposed He Who Observes All Signs Of Life. "We have a half-breed on our ship. She is one of our best officers."

"-- characterized, as I was saying," Church continued, "by a deep division between her humanoid and alien half."

"She's not a half-breed. I'm a half-breed. Can she do this?" Miranon stood up, and by some seemingly magical gesticulation (not unlike using a zipper), her two halves smoothly split asunder, like skin from fish, or like a hard-boiled egg from its shell.

Everyone in the restaurant stared, astonished. Miranon's Ngon half roared, feebly, with self-disgusted laughter. Her humanoid half began to cry again. Polydora stood up. "Come on, Miranon. That's enough. Let's get you back together again, back in the ship."

"No. No. I'm sorry. I won't do it again." Miranon's two halves joined smoothly once more. Everyone in the room was possessed of an enormous desire to run a finger up the join. "I want to eat some more."

"You can eat anything you like, my dear," Polydora said. "We'll order take-out. We'll have it brought to the ship. We just have to give them another can of mushrooms."

"Good!" Miranon cackled. "Give them more mushrooms..."

"Haven't I seen you before?" He Who Observes All Signs Of Life spoke politely to Church when the women had left. "Aren't you a Fed as well?"

"I am a Fed," Church replied, spooning gravy on a biscuit. "I don't know about 'as well.'"

"I meant," He Who Observes explained, "as well as the rest of us."

"The rest of you what?" Church asked. He looked the other up and down. "I am a Fed. I don't know what you are."

"I am a Fed Officer," He Who Observes stated, "Second in command of the Ship Yage."

"You're a criminal, a terrorist outlaw, joined up with a renegade ship cruising beyond the reaches of known space because if you go back, you're all going to be arrested, and it isn't going to be pretty."

"I'm going to ignore that," said He Who Observes All Signs Of Life, getting up from the table.

"You aren't even a real Indian," Cynthia remarked.

Panting War Buffalo turned red. "Yes I am! Look! I've got a tomahawk hanging from my nose. And what about the feather?"

"Doesn't make you an Indian. Admit it. Your ancestors were marauders from Spain."

"Sh! Sh, please. Don't tell anyone." The Fed officer lowered his voice so that they could hardly hear him. "I have to have a special identifying characteristic, or I'll turn in to one of the background characters. You know what happens to them?"

"No. What?" asked Cynthia.

"They disappear," Church told her. "Briefly seen, and then -- never again."

"Unless they're killed outright."

"True. Right after you land on a new planet."

"Exactly. So -- hence the Indian get-up."

"But why can't you be the descendant of marauders from Spain?"

"Because that didn't happen."

"What?" Cynthia exclaimed. "Of course it did."

"No," Church agreed. "In Fed terms, if something in history is complicated, then it didn't happen."

"Yeah. And to be one of the top characters, you have to be on the side of the good guys. If I was a descendant of marauders from Spain, I'd have to do penance."

"Not really!

"Well, in a manner of speaking. I'd have to act like a jerk, and then go through a period of remorse and reformation. But I'd never get to be one of the in-crowd. I'd never get the best shots. So you see, I'm an Indian. This tomahawk is real, you know. So please -- don't tell anyone -- about Spain. I'll tell you what -- I'll give you the rest of my mushrooms!"

Both Cynthia and Church recoiled. "No! No! Please! We won't tell anyone -- we promise. You can be an Indian, anything you want, just keep that stuff away from us -- please!"

"Well," said Panting War Buffalo. "If that's what you want -- thanks. I mean really, thanks."

"Wait," said Cynthia. "I've got to ask you this. What's that mark on your forehead?"

"Oh, that?" answered He Who Observes. "That's where my cousin hit me with a waffle iron. We were horsing around. We were just kids."

"Oh."

"Hi, guys!" Another Fed officer slid into the empty seat next to Church. She looked Church up and down. "How's it hanging?"

He Who Observes said, "This is the officer I was telling you about. This is M'B'C'D', and she is half humanoid and half Ngon -- just like your friend."

Church looked her up and down. "Nah."

"What's the matter?" the officer asked him. "Don't you like my eye ridges?" She leaned closer. "I can change them."

"It's not that," Church sputtered. "It's your lipstick."

"She's our chief engineer," He Who Observes added proudly.

"Oh yeah?" asked Church. "What do you do?"

"Oh..." she sighed, and her fingers insinuated toward his on the table. "I feed the hamsters, mostly. And I'm studying TECH."

"Wow," responded Church politely.

"Hi, Molly," said Cynthia. "Long time."

"Oh." M'B'C'D', or Molly, sat up. "Hi, Cynth. Are you still under contract?"

"As far as I know."

"Then you're not -- he's not yours?"

"Nope."

"Hey!" Church cried out, as Molly moved closer to him. "You almost spilled my hot chocolate!"

"Oh..." said Molly, and she put worlds into it. "I'm sorry."

"That reminds me," said Cynthia. "I'm hungry." And she summoned the waiter to order another meal. Church did the same.

Molly, leaning artistically toward him, moved her finger slowly up Church's arm.

"Don't tell me," Cynthia noted drily. "The Feds have one of those clauses prohibiting relations within the crew."

"No we don't!" protested He Who Observes.

"Yes, they do." Molly stated. "It's appalling."

"But -- we don't! Really!"

"Oh, yeah?" Molly looked him right in the eye. "Why are ninety-two percent of your officer corps single?" She appealed to Cynthia and Church. "Have you ever heard of such a proportion of single adults, outside of, say, a monastery?"

"Nope," said Cynthia.

"How do you explain it, then?" she asked He Who Observes.

"Well, Feds tend to be the sort of people who'd rather spend fourteen to sixteen hours a day on the job, rather than having a social life," he explained.

"You mean the Feds are nerds?" asked Cynthia.

"No, we're not nerds!" He Who Observes protested.

"Why do you think I got out?" Church asked her, starting in on a plate of pancakes, slavered with butter and syrup and jam.

"And what are you doing here anyway?" He Who Observes asked Molly. "Aren't you supposed to be on duty?"

"Oh." she said. "I just came to tell you. There's a Kuelmolian plague starting on board ship. We have thirteen cases and two deaths already. Our ensign has inexplicably grown a set of horns and locked himself in his room as three of the crew are now trying to kill him. Our mascot has gone into heat, which somehow endows her with extra-ordinary strength so she keeps abducting crew members and locking herself in closets with them and mating with them. Six assaults, so far. The captain's hair is falling out. Our security officer is barricading the forward part of the ship, but when you ask him why, he answers in tongues. And all but one of my hamsters have died, and the one left is really sick, so we have no way of powering the ship."

"WHAT!" said He Who Observes, as soon as he could get in a word. "WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME? WHY DIDN'T YOU CALL ME ON THE COM INSTEAD OF COMING ALL THE WAY OVER HERE?"

"Oh. The computer has fallen in love with the cook, and the only thing it will do is spout love poetry in over seventeen thousand languages and dialects, and make strange weeping sounds of frustration. The Captain thinks that we are suffering from a collapsing episodic field." She added to Church, "She thinks your ship is probably involved as well, so you might want to get back to it. She's been talking to your crew about it."

"How? If the com is down?"

"They put a couple of cups against the two hulls, attached by a piece of string, and they yell across it. It's kind of a primitive telephone."

"Come on!" cried He Who Observes All Forms Of Life. "We've got to get back!"

"Ah, well." Molly's fingers lingered on Church's sleeve. "I wish I'd thought of going into heat before that little alien did. I'd feel a lot better right now."

"Do you think we should head back?" Church asked Cynthia, when the two Fed officers had gone.

"Sure," said Cynthia. "But I want to finish my omelet first."

"Sounds good," Church agreed. "I think I'll have one, too."

1 Which, the proverb notwithstanding, you can do, if you have enough cake.


	14. Chapter 14

120

SHEP/Wolf

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

In Which Many Things Happen

When Church and Cynthia returned to the Shep they found Polydora alternately screaming and pressing her ear against one of the bulkheads. "WHAT TIME??" she screamed, and then listened. And again she screamed, "WHAT TIME??"

Axel was lying in Thebes' chair groaning and moaning in discomfort while his belly swelled outward to an impossible degree. Eloise stood near him making soothing noises, offering a complimentary drink, and making suggestions for naming the baby. Now and then, in another voice, the higher being that possessed her would explain to Axel that if he were a higher being he could reproduce himself by cloning, and it tried to explain how it was done. This made Axel cry.

Miranon was practically curled in to the fetal position with great old age. Nonetheless she hobbled about using a detached chair arm as a cane, and told everyone their business. "You young people," her voice was high and quavering, and piercing, "you never stick to anything, do you? No. You just let problems go, let them go, until they blow up in your faces! You young people are flibbertigibbets! I told you so!"

"Where's Pock?" Church asked. "Did he get something to eat?"

Polydora banged on the bulkhead a few times, and then answered him. "He's still on the bridge, sitting in a corner and shaking. He's got a nasty gleam in his eye. The episodic field is still collapsing."

"It doesn't seem too bad," said Church, looking around. "Anything happen to you, yet?"

"Other than getting violent flashbacks to a former life as a successful serial ax murderer?" Polydora asked. "No."

Church backed carefully away from her. "Okay...no offence...really..." His voice sounded strange. Cynthia looked at him, and then she started to laugh.

"What?" Church asked. "What's the matter?" and his voice really did sound strange.

Cynthia couldn't talk for laughing. Now Polydora, too, was looking him up and down.

"What is it? Don't come near me!" Church kept backing away.

"Oh, dear." said Polydora.

"You're definitely getting a figure," Cynthia told him. "And your complexion has definitely improved."

"Yes," Polydora mused. "It's true."

"What's true?" Church shouted. He felt his face. His felt his chest, and his hands stopped. "AAGH!"

"Yup," said Cynthia. "I'm definitely going to like you a lot -- as a woman."

Church's hands went confidently to his crotch. They froze. They felt around frantically. Church screamed. "OH NO!!" He ran to a bathroom and locked himself in.

"Yes," said Polydora. "The episodic zone is definitely collapsing at a faster rate. The Captain of the Yage was kind enough to call me and explain what is happening, before she lost power to her com."

"That was nice of her," said Cynthia.

"I thought so. She's losing her hair, did you know?"

"Yes. Her engineer told us."

"She said her people are going to try to throw a force field over the collapsing episodic zone, run it through the computer's literature section and try to stabilize the event scene long enough to start achieving some positive conclusions."

"I thought their computer was spouting nothing but love poetry?" said Cynthia. "That's what their engineer said."

"That's all right," said Polydora. "Traditional love poetry also has a correct fictional shape."

"I see. I think. Do you think it will work?"

"The Captain said it had a good chance."

"Yeah, but do you think it will work?"

"That depends on what time it is. If it's a quarter to the hour, then it probably will. But any time before the half hour mark, things are only going to get a lot worse." Polydora regarded Cynthia curiously. "Cynthia, why has nothing yet happened to you?"

"What do you mean?" Cynthia stared at her. "I've got a broken arm, remember?"

"But our episodic field is collapsing. Something more should have happened to you by now."

"Honestly!" Cynthia exploded. "Can't you tell? I've gained a pound and a half! Do you know what the punitive measures are for that in my contract? I am in big trouble here, unless things are sorted out!"

"Oh." said Polydora. "I see." She banged on the bulkhead again. "Come on! Come ON!"

"Hi, guys. Can I come in? Or should I say, permission to come aboard?" One of the Feds was sticking his head in from the open airlock. "Where's the Captain?"

Polydora said, "Have you come to tell us what's going on over there? I've lost contact with your ship."

"Yeah," said the Fed. "Where's your Captain?"

Cynthia moved toward him in a professional manner. She said, in her beautifully designed voice, "I'm afraid our Captain is -- in the bathroom. Can't you tell us?"

"Oh." said the Fed. "Sure."

What else could he say?

"I'm -- uh -- I'm the designated white male smooth hominid bad-boy-makes-good on our ship -- I mean -- I'm Eiffel Tower, and -- and -- " he tore his eyes away from Cynthia and took a deep breath. "What are you doing to me?"

"Nothing," said Cynthia, moving away. She added to Polydora. "I had to see if that pound and a half made any difference."

Eiffel Tower got his breath back. "I just came over to tell you guys that we're about to try the force field over there, and since it might not work, all of our crewmen are having moments of deep interpersonal growth, communicating their enormous love and respect for one another, and their gratitude that they're serving together on the ship."

"What about you?" asked Polydora.

"I already did mine, real fast. I'm efficient that way. So -- uh -- Cynthia -- don't go away."

"I'm not going anywhere. I'm waiting for this horrible episode in my life to end."

"Well -- uh -- want to go to bed? While we wait?"

"I can't. I'm under contract. I can only sleep with assigned escorts who will increase my publicity and enhance my career."

"But -- that's not fair!" Eiffel Tower cried. "I didn't know they did those things anymore! That's -- isn't that illegal?"

"Not if I agree," Cynthia told him. "You'd agree too, if they offered you your own planet after you worked twelve years."

"Yeah, well, I guess so -- but look, nobody would know. We're way out here -- who's to tell them what you did?"

"I'm afraid it's not as easy as that," said Cynthia. "I'm wearing a monitor. It's surgically implanted, and they'll download it when I report back. If it's been tampered with, they'll cancel my contract." She looked him up and down, professionally. Eiffel Tower gasped. "Sorry."

"Stop teasing him," said Polydora. "Haven't you proved already that your powers have not been reduced by your gain

of --"

"SH!" Cynthia glared at her. Polydora obligingly turned back to the Fed.

"Eiffel Tower, how long are they going to be spending with these interpersonal moments of growth?"

"Hell, I don't know. Sometimes it lasts a whole hour."

"Hello? Hello? Help!" They turned and saw Thebes hurrying through the airlock, and after her came eighteen short, hairy, four-armed, one-eyed humanoids (after a fashion).

"No -- hold on -- you can't come aboard --"

Polydora, Cynthia and Eloise, with Eiffel Tower's help, tried to herd the little beings back into the airlock.

"No, wait, you can't --" Thebes protested. Then she gave up and yelled, "LISTEN TO ME!" Everyone stopped. "You can't chase these creatures out of here."

"She's lying again," said Cynthia.

"I'm not. I'm afraid I'm not. Oh, I hope you can help me. You see, I've married them."

"All of them?" Polydora asked.

"That's what they told me. That it's a clan marriage. I don't know how it happened. I thought I was buying a piece of soap."

"Are you sure she's not lying again?" Cynthia asked.

"I AM NOT LYING!" Thebes cried, with what sounded like real distress. "Please, you must help me!"

"Then you must get a divorce," said Cynthia, logically.

"I asked about that!" Thebes wailed. "The only form of divorce these creatures recognize, is for me to kill every one of them. I can't do that. I can't. I'm really not very strong..." she collapsed in a chair. Eloise, torn between her and Axel, hovered between the two distressed passengers, while the higher being that possessed her muttered platitudes about this all passing away.

Then Church came out of the bathroom. He had taken off his clothes and was draped in a sheet tied off on one shoulder. His lean, manly form was now endowed with an astonishingly shapely female figure. His hair was long, his face was a classically sculpted vision of feminine perfection. He was carrying a piece of mirror he had broken off in the bathroom, and staring at himself as though he couldn't tear his eyes away. He ran his finger down the cheek reflected in the mirror, and then along his own.

"She's beautiful!" he breathed. "I'm beautiful. I've never seen anything like her. Look, Axel!" he slanted the mirror slightly so that Axel could see Church's reflection in it. "Isn't she stunning? Look at these!" He slanted the mirror even more, so they reflected his unbelievably conical breasts. He cradled one in his hand. "Don't you wish she was yours?" He lifted the mirror again and made little kisses at his own face. "She likes me. See? She loves me." He pressed the mirror to his face. "Ow!" The edge of the mirror had sliced a small cut on his cheek. One drop of blood ran down. Paris lifted it on his finger, kissed it, and licked it away. "The pain of love. I'm in love. At last I'm in love!"

"Eiffel Tower," said Polydora, "will you please get back to your ship and tell your Captain to get on with it! We can't wait any longer. We're reaching a crisis point here."

But Eiffel Tower was walking blindly toward Church. Soon they stood side by side staring into the mirror, equally enraptured, equally overwhelmed. Then Axel began to scream. His contractions had begun. Thebes ran howling from one side of the cabin to the other, pursued by eighteen husbands demanding marital rights. Polydora slammed her head against the bulkhead three times, but her screams of frustration could not be heard over the pandemonium that was already filling the cabin. Her eyes changed. She started to sweat, and to pant. She went to get the ax.


	15. Chapter 15

134

SHEP/Wolf

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

In Which Many Things Are Resolved

"May we come aboard?" a really cheery voice asked, but there was no point, really, because she and several of the Yage's crew members had already appeared in the main cabin in a tingle of light. It was Captain Jane Cathaway of the Good Ship Yage. She stood, legs akimbo, and surveyed the scene, her bright red mouth set in a rictus of a smile, and her arms making complicated decisive gestures indicating her authority. They must have done the trick, because when she said, "What is going on here?" everyone in the cabin stopped and turned to her. Or it might have been the director with the camera and stage crew that appeared at the same time, crawling through the airlock, who was shouting, "People! People! Over here, people!" and waving his arms. Cathaway, as always, pretended he wasn't there. She advanced into the main cabin.

"All right. What's the problem here?"

Polydora looked at her axe blade. Fortunately, there was no gook on it. She hurried over to Cathaway. "What are you doing over here? Aren't you supposed to be working on stabilizing the episodic field?"

"We've done that," Cathaway told her. "We TECH TECH TECH the TECH TECH TECH, and when the TECH TECH TECH TECH we simply reversed the TECH TECH TECH TECH TECH! The Episodic Field has stabilized, and all we have to do now is bring all our problems to a resolution. We've just finished solving all the problems on my ship. Now we've come to solve all of yours."

"Oh," said Polydora. "Good. What have you decided to do about your hair?"

Cathaway, smiling even more stiffly, ran her hand across her hairless scalp in a gesture common to twenty-three percent of Fed ships' captains. "It's not a problem. I like it like this. I do." She was smiling so hard Polydora had to believe her. The Captain continued. "We have lost ninety-four percent of our power, but we'll recover it all in about a week and be back to normal. Several members of my crew are in a state of physical or emotional collapse after the climax of the multi-episodic field, but they're all getting better at about the same rate, so now my top officers and I have come to see what we can do for you."

"You've lost ninety-four percent of your power, a bunch of your crew members are disabled, and you've come over here to solve our problems? Who's running your ship?"

"Oh, just some ensign. Don't worry. Nothing will happen; I told you. The Episodic Field is stabilized. Now we just need to resolve all of your problems."

"And you can do that?"

"Of course. We Feds know all the answers. What's your problem? Why the axe?"

"I'm having flashbacks to a previous existence as a successful serial axe murderer."

"Oh." Cathaway stepped back. "Well, you'll be fine in a week. I promise. Eiffel Tower, what are you doing over here? Are you having a problem?"

Eiffel Tower didn't take his eyes from Church's mirror. "We're in love," he breathed. Church wiped Eiffel Tower's breath from the mirror and continued gazing devoutly at herself.

Polydora said, "Church has changed into a woman. It's distracting him."

"I see. And you'd like him changed back. Cathaway to bridge!" she called.

"Captain," her most colorless officer stepped forward. He was a Pointy-Eared Person, and he made no impression on anyone, so he had to say it again. "Captain, the com has still not been repaired, but I used our matter-reformer to replicate this ancient communication device so that you may be connected to the computer."

"You created this, Onecough?"

"Yes, Captain."

"We're down to six percent of our power and you used the matter-reformer? Do you know how much energy that thing uses?"

"Wait a moment," Polydora put in. "How is your ship maintaining life support if you are down to six percent of your power?"

"Hold it! Hold it! Cut!" the director came forward, waving his arms. "You can't say that. That's not in the script."

"I don't work with a script."

"What are you talking about? Of course you have a script, everybody has a script -- even I have a script." He showed her his script, where it said, "Even I have a script."

"Well I don't," said Polydora. "None of us on the Shep do. We're from a different organization."

"Oh yeah? Okay. Right. Fucking Unions. But you can't ask questions like that. Just -- forget it. Forget you even thought it. Everybody got that? Nobody ever thought it. It didn't happen. Right! Next line! Take it from -- Onecough, take it from your next line. Ready -- and --"

The colorless officer cleared his throat and continued in his usual colorless voice. "By realigning the TECH TECH TECH I was able to replicate this ancient communication device without draining any power from the ship's engines."

"Good job, Onecough. I'd just like to say," Cathaway turned toward him tenderly and fervently, "how much it means to me to have you with me --"

Axel lost interest and began screaming again.

"Look, could you just get on with it?" Polydora asked. She found she had lifted the axe and hastily put it down again.

"All right." Cathaway shook the ancient communicator. "How does this work?"

"You flip open this cover right here."

The little gadget crackled and a voice was heard. "--terprise here. Yes, Captain?"

"Wrong setting," said Onecough. "If I may..." He pretended to make an adjustment while surreptitiously eyeing one of the stage crew. "It should work now," he said with emphasis. He looked full at the member of the camera crew in charge of sound effects.

Cathaway flipped it open again. "This is Captain Jane Cathaway. I mean you know harm. Do you read me?"

A lugubrious voice crackled through the static, "'Many a tear has fallen from my eyes into the snow, its cold flakes greedily drink in my burning anguish --'"

"That's enough! Computer, you are to finish reprogramming yourself immediately. Cordon off all love poetry in your memory banks and restrict yourself from that area. Meanwhile, I want a TECH beam at these coordinates. If you reverse the TECH beam and TECH the TECH, that will realign his molecules with the needed Y-chromosome that some alien force field has seen fit to remove." She confided to Polydora. "It was probably just trying to communicate."

"What was?"

"The alien who beamed a force field over your Captain and replaced his Y-chromosomes with super-X."

"The alien was trying to communicate?" Polydora said. "Is that what you think? It made a disastrous change in the life of our 'Captain,' as you call him, and you think it was trying to communicate?"

"They usually are." Cathaway told her decisively.

"Have you raised any children?" Polydora asked her.

"Not yet." The Captain replied. "I think that's scheduled for next season, so that my viewers don't find that I've lost touch with my womanhood just because I am, purely because my competence has caused me to rise through the Fed officer ranks, and simply for the time being, an authoritative figure."

"I see. And when your child performs some wanton act of destruction are you just going to think --" Polydora's voice was drowned out by the noise that indicated that the TECH beam the Captain had ordered what honing in on the correct coordinates. Actually, the assistant director told them they were hearing it, and they all believed him. Then another assistant told them they were seeing the special effect of Church being altered by the beam, and they believed him too. The noise ceased. Church, with a sob, dropped his mirror and rushed to the bathroom, his sheet falling away behind him, like Cinderella running away from the ball at the stroke of twelve. Eiffel Tower slowly and dramatically picked up what remained of the mirror. The camera hurried toward him. He covered the mirror with a gentle hand. "I will never forget her. Never." He closed his eyes -- which was probably a good idea because the camera was not an inch from his face -- and kissed the mirror fervently. And indeed, to Eiffel Tower, as to Church when he emerged from the bathroom sometime later in his old clothes, and looking like his old self, she would always be the woman.

"All right," said Cathaway cheerily, "that solves that. What else can we do for you?"

"Me! Me! Oh please! Help me!" Thebes, the distraught

Zeban empath ran into the main cabin followed closely by her eighteen spouses who, having given up on marital rights as their wife was moving too fast, were loudly offering to settle for eighteen separate dinners, inclusive of various foot baths, back rubs, and numberless boring domestic chores.

"Why?" asked Captain Cathaway. "What's the problem?"

"What's the problem?" Thebes cried. "Can't you see the problem? I don't want to be married to these eighteen little alien -- beings!" she finished on a sob.

"And why not?" asked Cathaway. "Are you intimating for one moment that just because they are different from you, they are not as good as you?" the Fed Captain's eyes glittered. Her lipstick glittered too.

"No!" shrieked Thebes. "I mean, yes! I mean -- I don't CARE! I JUST DON'T WANT TO BE MARRIED TO THEM!"

"How did this happen?" Cathaway asked.

"I went into a store. I thought it was a store. I bought a piece of soap. I thought I bought a piece of soap. When I left, these people followed me. I told them to go away. They wouldn't. I went back to the store. The shop keeper told me, I had, in the course of our transaction, married these eighteen -- beings."

"Yes? And what would you like us to do?"

"GET RID OF THEM!" Thebes shrieked.

"I'm afraid I can't," Cathaway told her. "We all have to respect local customs. All local customs are just as important as our own, and if, on this station, a purchase of soap is the equivalent of a marriage ceremony, who are we to say that our ways are any better? Who are we, in fact, to say that our ways are even as good? As a matter of fact, wouldn't we be better people if we adopted these finer, simpler ways. Onecough!"

"Yes, Captain?"

"Where are you?"

"I'm right here, Captain."

"Oh. Sorry. I didn't see you for a moment. Onecough, write it in to our ship's log. From now on, any purchase of soap from ship's stores on the Yage will constitute a proposal of marriage. Then, set up a committee to praise the results."

"Yes, Captain."

"WAIT!" screamed Thebes. "WHAT ABOUT MY PROBLEM!"

"Well, I'm afraid," Cathaway told her, "that yours is a family matter now, and we never interfere in family matters, do we?"

"Except to give advice," Onecough added, but no one was listening.

"Wait!" said Thebes, looking intently in the Captain's face. "I know what it is. I see what you're thinking. You think because I'm shorter than you, and because I have face ridges and don't wear lipstick, that I deserve to live with these ugly little primitives who have no personal hygiene. So that's why you're doing this to me!"

"No!" said Cathaway. "I don't think that. Oh, come on. I'm not allowed to think that. Of course I don't think that."

But her crew was stepping back from her. They were moving away.

"I don't think that at all!"

"You do! You do! I am a Zeban, an Empath, and right now you are worried that if people start to think that you do think that way about a minority member like me --"

"All right, all right, that's enough," said Cathaway. "If it's a divorce you want, that's easy. Our ship's mascot, while visiting a local bathhouse -- solely with a view to analyze the water and test its relative softness, and not for any personal immoral practices such as bathing with the assistance of a local bath attendant of the same or opposite sex!" She looked around fiercely, but her officers were, as usual, agreeing with her. "As I was saying, in a purely official visit to a local bathhouse, our ship's mascot found that he had inadvertently acquired a decree nisi; a marital nullification. We have determined that since he was acting on behalf of the ship in his purchase the separation doesn't apply to him, personally, or to his personal living conditions, but if you care to make use of it --" she held out a paper, and Thebes snatched it from Cathaway's hands and held it high.

There were eighteen groans from eighteen small divorcees, who filed disconsolately into the airlock and out of the ship. Thebes, clutching her precious paper, crawled between the row of seats where she had lain so long prior to gaining consciousness at the beginning of Chapter Ten, and proceeded to have a quiet tizzy all by herself.

"Well," said Captain Cathaway, rubbing her hands, "that disposes of that problem. Anything else that you people can't get over by yourselves within a week?" She had to raise her voice, so she could be heard. Axel's screams had started again. "What is that kid's problem?"

Her colorless officer investigated. "According to the colored lights on my instrument, this humanoid is suffering from the last stages of labor."

"Well, that's perfectly natural, isn't it? No problem there."

"He is a male, Captain."

"Yes?"

Axel screamed again.

"Oh." said the Captain. "I see."

"And my instruments further indicate that the being he is giving birth to is not in fact a member of his own species, nor is he in anyway related to it. He is simply a host mother for the organism."

"Well then," concluded Captain Cathaway, "we'd better transport them aboard our ship and have our medical officer take care of it."

"Take care of it?" Polydora asked. "What do you mean, take care of it?"

"Look," said Cathaway, "this episode has gone on long enough. If we don't get this problem resolved before too long, someone is going to end up on the cutting room floor, and it ain't gonna be me. So get that kid over to our ship, pronto."

"Captain," said Onecough, "I cannot guarantee the results if we transport these two beings at this stage. Our ship's defenses will reject the unknown life form, unless they are reprogrammed prior to the move."

"Oh for crying out loud." asked the Captain. "How do you know that?"

Onecough glanced surreptitiously over at the director, who, at this moment, fortunately seemed to be asleep. "That's what it says on my instrument panel. See? Right here, 'Captain, I cannot guarantee the results,' and here, '--will reject the unknown life form.' I am simply reporting exactly what my instruments tell me to say."

"So that is how the Feds always know everything!" Polydora remarked. "We were all wondering."

"All right, all right," said Cathaway. "Get our ship's medical officer over here and have him -- do whatever he has to do.

Onecough used the ancient com device and called for medical assistance. Immediately they heard a high-pitched sound like someone crying "whoooooo" into a microphone.

"What's that?" Polydora asked.

Onecough stated, like one who knows he is telling an untruth, "That is our medical officer."

"You're kidding."

"Pointy-Eared People do not kid," he told her. "Unfortunately, our medical officer was killed at the outset of our travels. Fortunately, however, he doesn't know he is dead. As a ghost, he functions as our medical officer with reasonable competence. Occasional reminders of his -- lack of

corpulence --" he put it delicately, "bring moments of humor to the crew. Those of the crew," he amended, "who can laugh."

Suddenly the ghostly noise (sounding not unlike someone going "whoooooo" into a microphone, ceased abruptly, and was replaced by wolf whistles, groans, moans, and cries of "Hubba hubba!"

"Doctor!" said Captain Cathaway, "Control yourself!"

"Can't you see her?" a ghostly form was definitely materializing near Cynthia. In fact, it was attempting to surround her. "It's a genuine Stellar Beauty Queen! Where have you been all my life, sweetheart?"

Cynthia took a swing at him, but that was pretty pointless.

"Doctor!" admonished Cathaway, "We do not behave that way on my ship!"

"We're not on your ship, Captain," the ghost replied. "I may be dead, but I've still got my feelings."

"So have I," said Cynthia. She swung at him again. Unfortunately, she jarred her broken arm in the process. She gritted her teeth and made a beautifully lady-like squeak of pain. (Stellar Beauty Queens are trained to make such noises when undergoing moments of stress). The doctor turned professional all at once. He pointed a ghostly instrument at her, which lit up as he used it. "Hey!" he said. "Did you know that arm is broken? Let me fix that right up!"

"Good," said Cathaway, gesturing with her arms again, since the scene was starting to get away from her. "Do so. And then see what you can do about that kid who's screaming.

In only a moment, Cynthia was back to swinging at the ghost with both arms, and they knew he had fixed her right up. Shortly after, Polydora could see the ghostly figure hovering about Axel, whose screams, at last, abruptly ceased.

"Well!" said Captain Cathaway, with finality. "Now we can --"

"And what about me?" A tiny, shrunken creature with a wisp of grey hair down its back inched forward, dragging the arm of a chair for support. Miranon's skin was grey and mottled to the degree that, aside from the ridges on her left side, you could hardly tell the difference between her two halves. Her eyes, however, were clear and bright, and her voice was piercing. "Have you got a solution for me in your bag of tricks? A diploma won't help me, nor a medal, and my heart, thank you very much, is working nicely."

"What's your problem?" asked Cathaway. "Though let me tell you in advance, we have no responsibility to interfere with natural processes such as aging."

"Aging? Aging!? I am twenty-six!" shrieked Miranon. "I shouldn't be like this!"

"Look," said the Captain, "we're running out of time --"

"I am running out of time!" Miranon shrieked again.

"Onecough!" said Cathaway, in a brilliant act of authority that would bring them to the end of the episodic crisis on schedule and with a minute to spare for a tender, moving denouement, "Take care of it!"

She looked around. Church was coming out of the bathroom. Eiffel Tower, still holding the fragment of mirror, met him and they hugged. Thebes could be heard sobbing behind her chosen row of chairs. To the sound Axel's exhausted breathing had been added a strange mewling cry, and the sound of ghostly laughter could be heard. "Does anyone," Captain Cathaway, legs akimbo, and arms set in a position denoting her authority to anyone who doubted it, "care to say anything about their feelings, and share this moment of interpersonal growth?" The episode, everyone sensed at last, was coming to its 'natural' conclusion.

"Well then," said Cathaway, running a hand over her smooth head in a gesture of boyish vulnerability designed to balance her authoritative stance, "I would just like to say --"

"Captain!" said Onecough, with as much emphasis as Pointy-Eared People in these times ever allowed themselves.

"What is it, Onecough? We're out of time!"

"I'm afraid we will have to have a continuation," Onecough stated. "There is a Pointy-Eared Person in the control room in the last stages of, what we would call, heat. We must help him." The camera hurried toward Onecough as he said his last words. "We must."


End file.
